Justice Marvel
by lyokoMARVELanime
Summary: After the whole ordeal in Atlantis, the League thought everything was resolved, but it turns out that their most recent adventure had opened the door for a living legend to return. Witness what things will become of the DCAU once the First Avenger joins the Justice League!
1. Legend's Return

_**AN: Hey everyone, lyokoMARVELanime here, and I am coming at you full force with a story idea that you've seen under future projects in my profile for a long, long time, until now that is. That's right, we are now officially welcoming the first chapter of my Captain America &Justice League crossover story!**_

 _ **[audience applause]**_

 _ **I'll be honest, I was a bit hesitant to start this story right now, but somewhere inside of me, something was just saying that now was the time to get this story up and running. I mean, I have said I would be eventually doing it for well over a year now, so here we are! Now, I've kept you all here long enough, so by all means, enjoy.**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Legend's Return**

Since they had first come together just a short while ago, the Justice League had faced some very strange, yet incredible adventures. Though it had not been all that long, the seven heroes had already faced off against an alien invasion of Earth, a conspiracy that would have led to the destruction of the Green Lantern Corp, and just recently, they had thwarted a plot against Aquaman's life, which would have led the citizens of Atlantis and the rest of the world to destruction. What had started as the Atlantean king making an attempt to negotiate peace quickly led the Justice League and Aquaman into conflict with Arthur's brother, Orm, who wished to destroy the surface world and seize the throne for himself. The struggle had nearly cost them the life of Aquaman's son, but the passionate king had not hesitated to sacrifice his own hand in order to save the young baby. From there, it was just a matter of leading the Justice League to the North Pole where an Atlantean doomsday device had been activated by Orm in order to create a polar meltdown.

After a hard struggle against Orm's followers, Aquaman was able to defeat his treacherous brother and reclaim what was his, while Batman and Green Lantern shut down the reactor, and Superman, Wonder Woman, and J'onn J'onzz subdued any remaining soldiers who were not loyal to Aquaman. As a small side bonus, it also allowed Aquaman to put his new hook hand to the test in battle, and Orm would never trouble anyone again. After rounding up all the remaining traitors, Aquaman returned to Atlantis with the Justice League and immediately demanded that his guards remove the traitors from his sights, leaving him alone with his friends from the surface, his wife, and his sleeping son.

"I can only blame myself for all of this," Aquaman sighed as he looked at the hook that had now replaced his left hand. "My fear of the surface dwellers blinded me to those I should've feared most, and it cost me dearly."

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Maybe we've all misjudged," Green Lantern assured the Atlantean king, since he himself had more than a fair share of doubts in regards to Aquaman and Atlantis up until now, to put it mildly.

"Perhaps," Aquaman conceded, and he then walked down from his throne to gaze out at the great city beneath the sea that he loved so much. "All I want, all I've ever wanted is peace and security for Atlantis."

"After what's happened, it won't be easy," Superman cautioned his friend.

"I know, but some sacrifices are worth it," Aquaman nodded before turning a caring gaze to his wife and child.

Everyone nodded in acceptance of this, knowing that Aquaman would definitely do all that he could to keep his people and family safe in the best way possible from now on, and the League then made to leave, some of them already hearing the somewhat immature joke Flash would make once he heard about this and Hawkgirl lightly complaining about missing a good fight, until they were suddenly stopped by another Atlantean with black hair wearing a black vest and pants, along with a gold belt. "My king, something has been discovered at the reactor's former location," the man shouted as he kneeled before Aquaman.

"What is it Namor," Aquaman asked once the new arrival had officially gained everyone's attention.

"The device had been placed in the location it had been because we thought that there was no one there aside from various animal life, but as we were removing it, we discovered that there was someone there," Namor reported.

"Why was this not noticed until now?"

"Because the person in question was actually frozen in the ice, and during the brief time that the reactor had been activated, the ice was melted and shifted just enough for him to be brought to the surface. He is still frozen, but he is definitely alive, and it seems he has been frozen there for many years."

"That's impossible," Batman argued. "Not even an average Atlantean could survive being frozen in ice for several years."

"I assure you this man is not Atlantean, and more than that, he is certainly no average human," Namor replied.

Batman was still skeptical of the matter, but Namor's words were enough for the rest of the League to think that it was worth investigating, so they were quick to fly back up to the North Pole and see what Namor had found for themselves. At first glance, there did not seem to be anything noteworthy to any of the League, aside from the many Atlanteans that were working hard to dismantle the reactor that had nearly destroyed the world, until Namor led them to a small encampment that had been set up around the area where they had found the man in the ice. When the league finally saw this person, even Batman became a little wide-eyed at the sight of him.

There, lying on a table, still frozen in ice, was a man who looked to be in his mid to late twenties, in an old World War II uniform that was colored blue, with hints of red and white in certain areas, and a silver star on his chest, and on his arm was a circular shield that was also red and white, with a blue center and a silver star in the middle, and it was this uniform that immediately told everyone in the League who knew their Earth history who this man was.

"I'm seeing it, but I'm still not sure I believe it," Lantern commented as he scanned the man with his ring.

"That makes two of us," Superman admitted. "And yet, it really is him. Captain America, the hero of World War II."

"Or so it seems to be," Batman argued, ever the skeptic.

"Well if it's not him, then it's a pretty good imposter, because even my ring is saying that it's him," John told the Dark Knight of Gotham.

"And more importantly, I can hear his heartbeat. It may be faint, but he is definitely alive," Superman confirmed.

"Hera," Wonder Woman gasped in shock, because even though she had done a little studying up on man's world, there were still things about it that she found shocking, and this situation before her definitely qualified.

"We should bring him back to the Watchtower for medical treatment," J'onn stated with shock seeping into his normally monotone voice. No one disagreed with the Martian, and they were all quick to begin moving the long-lost soldier onto the Javelin so that they could get the captain to their base's medical bay.

* * *

Steve Rogers was not sure how long he had been unconscious, but he did know that it must have been at least a few hours since he had been thrown out of the plane that the Red Skull would have used to destroy the entire Eastern Coast of the United States, and even through the darkness that clouded his vision, he could tell that he was likely in some sort of medical room. After regaining a bit of his vision though, and catching a few words from the people around him as he regained a bit of his hearing, it quickly became clear that he was not in a hospital room, and the strangely dressed people he saw quickly led him to one conclusion: he had been captured by HYDRA. At least, that was his first thought, but Steve was not one to jump to conclusions so quickly, so he decided to keep acting as though he were still unconscious so that he could feel the situation out. That plan was quickly thwarted when he heard someone say that they realized he was awake, so he went with the only option available to him at that time.

Thinking quickly, Steve swung his shield into one of the people standing directly over him, and then kicked a second one away before he leapt off the bed and pinned a third person to the wall with said bed. The man in question, who Steve saw was a black skinned man in a strange green and black suit, grunted in pain for a minute before he looked up and calmly said, "Calm down, Captain. You're safe."

Steve was not going to buy it that easily, and immediately demanded, "Who are you? Where have you and HYDRA taken me?"

"I'm not HYDRA," the man stated. "But you've been frozen in ice for decades, and we just pulled you out, saving your life."

"You're creative, son. I'll give you that," Steve admitted, showing that he did not believe a word he just heard. Before Steve could repeat his question, a golden rope suddenly found its way around him, pinning his arms to his side, and pulling him away from the man he had pinned. Looking to the other end of the rope, Steve saw what was probably one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen in his life staring back with hard, yet sympathetic eyes, long, flowing black hair, and fair skin. Had he been in another situation, Steve probably would have been blushing at the sight of this woman, but since he was more than likely in enemy territory, he was more than able to suppress that feeling, no matter how strong it might have been at the moment.

"Please calm down," the woman told him in a gentle, but firm voice. "Like John said, we are friends, and we don't want to hurt you."

"My apologies, Miss, but this soldier doesn't listen HYDRA agents," Steve retorted, and he immediately grabbed the rope around him and gave it a hard pull. The woman was clearly caught off guard, as Steve had no trouble pulling her towards him so that he could shove a knee into her stomach, winding her just enough for her grasp on the rope to be loosened to the point that Steve was able to slip out. Once he was freed, Steve had immediately grabbed the woman before she hit the floor, and gently lowered her down, not wanting to harm her anymore than he already had since he was a bit of a gentleman. Before he could make any other moves, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and glanced up to see a large, broad shouldered man in a blue suit, red belt, and red cape with a strange looking "S" on his chest standing behind him.

"There's no reason to worry," the man told Steve. "We don't want to hurt you."

"The feeling's not mutual, buddy," Steve shouted, and he instantly grabbed the man's arm and flung him over his shoulder, right into another man in a strange looking, black and grey suit. Seeing that everyone in the room was down for the moment, Steve immediately raced towards the door, out into the hallway, and off into what he hoped was the direction of the hangar in this base so that he could secure a vehicle for his escape from this place. He did not get very far though, as he soon found his path cut off when a green-skinned man in a blue cape, pants, and boots, with a red "X" on his chest suddenly rose up from the floor in front of him, causing him to pause in shock at the man's sudden appearance.

"You must calm down," the green man stated in a monotone. "There is no reason for you to be frightened or mistrusting of us."

"What are you, Mister," Steve demanded. "One of Zola's experiments?"

"No. I am a Martian," the green man replied, catching Steve off-guard more with how casually the man had said it than what he had said.

"Okay, that's different," Steve admitted, but before he could further inquire about this, the sound of a battle cry from behind him grabbed his attention, and he immediately spun around with his shield ready. Steve paid no mind to the supposed Martian's pleas for his attacker to stop, as he was more concerned with the shockwave that the new arrival's weapon had unleashed when they struck his shield, but thankfully, Steve was able to stand his ground and withstand the blow, and after holding the person back, he glanced around his shield to find another startling sight before him.

This new person was a red haired woman in a yellow and black suit, and a bird-like mask. The woman's fiery glare was only matched by the amount of strength she was using to push down on Steve's shield with her mace that sparked with electricity, but the shocking thing about this woman was the fact that she had a large pair of grey wings sprouting out of her back. Steve did not let this bother him for long, and eventually managed to push the woman back, only to stare in mild surprise when he saw her right herself in mid-air after spreading her wings a little. The woman was about to charge again, when the Martian suddenly appeared in front of her telling her to wait. Steve could tell that this new arrival did not like being told not to attack when she thought there was a fight to be had, but he did not stay to pay any mind to the argument that was about to ensue, and began racing through the base again while they were distracted.

Steve continued to make his way through the base, finding its numerous grey halls gave it a maze-like feeling, until he finally came into a large room that was clearly at the center of everything in the place. Knowing that there was likely a control panel he could use to discover an exit, Steve was more than prepared to run in and find such panel, until he looked out the large window and saw the most startling sight he had seen since waking up. There before him, was Planet Earth, in all its peaceful, wondrous glory, and upon walking up to the window and tapping the glass, Steve could tell that it was no illusion or trick of any kind, so he could only stare in awe at the fact that he had somehow ended up in space until he sensed someone approach him from behind.

This time, Steve did not attack the person, and let them approach before he slowly turned around and saw that it was the man with an "S" on his chest coming up to him. "I'm sorry about all the confusion, but we were hoping that you would be a little calmer when you finally woke up, and that we would be able to break the news to you slowly," the man stated.

"What is this place," Steve finally asked after a minute of silence. "Who are you people, and what news are you talking about?"

"This is the Watchtower, our headquarters," the man stated. "I'm known to the world as Superman, and our group is known as the Justice League. As for your last question…you've been frozen in ice for decades Captain. World War II has been over for a long time."

"How long," Steve nervously asked.

Superman hesitated for a minute, making Steve repeat his question at least once, until he finally replied, "Almost seventy years now."

Steve gasped in shock when he heard this, and nearly stumbled into the wall behind him at hearing this news. When finally collected himself again, he looked up and asked, "Did we win?"

Superman smiled and said, "Yes we did, thanks in large part to you."

Steve nodded in thanks for that information, and promptly passed out from exhaustion, barely noticing how Superman's teammates had just arrived when he did, or how the Justice League agreed to get him back to the medical bay just to make sure he was only suffering from exhaustion.

* * *

A few hours later, Steve had woken up again, and then found himself being introduced to the rest of the Justice League, or at least the members who were there at the time. The first person that Superman introduced him to was the beautiful woman that had tried to tie him up before, and she turned out to be a princess from an island that was completely populated by women. The woman introduced herself as Diana, and that the world knew her better as Wonder Woman, and if her appearance was anything to go by, Steve could see why. The woman was exceptionally beautiful, now that he was able to get a better look at her, and it was taking every ounce of restraint he had to keep his eyes on her face and away from the rest of her body, given how the leotard she wore left very little to the imagination. It honestly amazed him that Diana did not seem to be too upset with him about their previous encounter, so when Diana explained that her people were trained as warriors from birth and that she possessed incredible strength, Steve was thanking whatever higher power made sure that she was not upset.

The next person he met was the first man he had really spoken to after waking up: John Stewart, alias Green Lantern. Apparently, John was a former marine and now served as part of a large group of intergalactic peace keepers, if what Steve was told about the Green Lanterns was any indication, and shortly after John, Steve was properly introduced to the winged woman, Hawkgirl. Unlike Diana, Hawkgirl seemed to be a little more upset with how her fight with Steve had gone, but she was clearly smart enough to not let such petty things as pride keep her from being polite once she heard a bit more about his situation.

The two people in this team of heroes that Steve honestly felt a great deal of sadness for were probably Superman and J'onn, when the two explained that not only were they aliens from other planets, but that they were also the last of their kind. Superman explained that his home planet had been destroyed when he was just a baby, while J'onn explained that he lost the other Martian people to an attack from violent invaders. Steve was a bit more sympathetic to the Martian than he was Superman, as he knew very well just what kind of sorrow and tragedy wars could bring, plus, given that Superman still had one living relative, it was a bit easier for Steve to feel more sorry for J'onn than it was for the last son of Krypton.

The last member he met was probably one of the strangest, not only because of his outfit, but because out of all the people on this team, it seemed like this last person was the only one without any special powers. This final individual was Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham City. Even though Steve could not see his eyes under the white lenses of his cowl, it was obvious that Batman was glaring at him with distrust, but Superman was quick to assure Steve that Batman did not really trust anyone all that much or that easily, a policy that Steve could not fault the caped crusader for. After spending a little time with Batman though, Steve could see why he was a part of this group, as Batman was more focused on using his skills, tools, and mind to resolve a situation as opposed to brute strength and special powers, like most of the League seemed to be, from Steve's perspective at that time. The fact that someone who was only a mere man was able to stand side-by-side with people who were practically gods was more than enough for Steve to give Batman a great deal of respect.

The only Leaguer that Steve did not meet was someone that everyone referred to as Flash, but they all assured him that Steve would not likely forget him when he finally did meet the last member of the Justice League, and once he had been fully brought up to speed with a little help from Batman and J'onn, Steve found that there was really only one question left for him to pose to the six heroes that now stood before him in the Watchtower's observation deck. "What do I do now? Everyone I ever knew…my whole world…it's all gone. I can't really believe that a world that's changed so much and that now has so many heroes could still need Captain America," Steve said, sadly.

"I know this is a lot to take in, but we'll be more than happy to help however we can," Superman assured the formerly frozen soldier. "In all honesty, we'd be more than happy to welcome you into the League, but maybe you should try to see the rest of the world first, just so you can see if there's still something in this era that you consider worth fighting for."

Steve nodded in acceptance of this, and then asked, "So where should I start?"

"How about Metropolis," Hawkgirl suggested. "It does seem to be where we do most of our work usually."

"That sounds good," Superman agreed. "I'd be more than happy to help show you around as well, if you'd like, and if you want, you can also see the other cities that each of us has come to protect."

Steve thought the idea over for a minute. Aside from Hawkgirl, J'onn, and Wonder Woman, each of the other members of the Justice League had been known to do a lot of good work in a certain city, with the main examples being how Superman and Batman each normally operated in Metropolis and Gotham, respectively, so seeing a bit more of the new world he had woken up to by starting with the cities that these new friends he had found both lived and defended did seem like a good option to him. With all of this in mind, Steve found that there was really no real reason for him to say anything other than yes to the offer, and with that, he and Superman were set to depart once they were both ready.

Before they had reached the hangar though, Batman stopped him for a moment and said, "You might want to consider getting a change of clothes, and if you do want to keep fighting the good fight, you'll also want to get your uniform repaired."

Steve looked down at his old, worn and torn suit for a minute before he asked, "Don't you think the stars and stripes might be a little old-fashioned now?"

Batman did not say anything for a minute until he finally said, "Sometimes people need something a little old-fashioned in their lives for one reason or another." Batman let that hang for another minute before he looked back at Steve and said, "If you want, I can have someone look in to getting you a more modern version of your suit, but until then, I'd suggest you figure out how to patch up the one you've got."

Steve nodded in thanks for the offer, and then let Superman show him where he could find a set of civilian attire that he could wear while on Earth. He was extremely thankful that the Watchtower was setup to act as a second home if anyone on the team needed it to be, and that at least one or two of the leaguers were about the same size as him, so once he had secured everything he needed, he flew down to Earth in a shuttle with Superman, and then found himself being flown to the apartment that the Man of Steel stayed in. Steve was well aware that Superman's identity was a secret to the world, and he was about to inquire as to why Superman would bring him to his apartment, when Superman beat him to the punch.

"I figured that it would be a little strange for you to stay in a hotel and then be led around by a stranger while you are here, so I don't think there's really any harm in telling you this," Superman stated. He then held out his hand for Steve to shake and said, "My Earth name is Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet Newspaper. It's an honor to meet you, Captain America."

Steve stared in surprise for a minute until he finally accepted the handshake and said, "The pleasure's mine, son, and please, call me Steve. Steve Rogers."

* * *

 ** _AN: Okay so, a few things I want to make clear before this goes any further. This story follows the timeline of the Justice League cartoon from 2001, you know, from the DCAU, and basically acts as though Captain America were part of that universe, but don't think that there won't be other MARVEL characters as well. As for the appearances of the characters in this story, right now, I'm telling you that just about everyone that's appeared in this chapter on the Justice League looks the same way they did in the original cartoon, with the exception of Superman and Batman. Their suits basically look like the ones they wear in Justice League: War, you know the animated movie. As for Cap, at the moment, his suit is like the one he wore in Captain America: The First Avenger, but it will eventually change to be like the one he wears in Avengers Assemble, the TV series, just in case that wasn't clear._**

 ** _Now, the reason why this chapter is so short is because I mainly wanted to just introduce Steve into the world in this chapter. The focus here was Captain America waking up and learning about how the world has changed while also meeting most of the Justice League. I didn't have him meet Flash yet because I wanted him to meet the speedster after spending time on Earth, and if you think that Cap learned who Superman was a little too easily, don't worry, that won't be the case with every hero in the Justice League who actually has a secret identity in that series. I may have him learn one other secret identity before we get into the main episodes of the Justice League series, but before that, Steve's going to spend a little time with certain members of the League, starting with Superman, and the next few chapters will basically highlight all of that while also showing Steve's journey in rediscovering the world and learning about the Leaguers, and anyone that is associated with them, like Batgirl, Robin, and Nightwing for Batman for example._**

 ** _Speaking of the next few chapters, Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _Steve's adjustment to the modern world begins with an adventure in Metropolis. Meeting the people that are part of both Superman and Clark Kent's lives is a little surprising for Steve at first, especially given all the things he discovers while here, but the only thing that he finds more shocking are the various supervillains that Superman goes up against. When the Man of Steel suddenly goes missing after flying off to stop one such villain, can teaming up with Supergirl allow Steve to do something in order to help? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 2: Metropolis Mayhem** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	2. Metropolis Mayhem

_**AN: Hey everyone, I'm back with another dosage of Captain America &Justice League goodness, and we're rolling into action again with a trip to Metropolis, which features some of Superman's most iconic and popular friends and allies. If you don't know what I mean, then you will once you've read the chapter. In all honesty though, there was not really all that much action this time around, but this chapter was mostly focused on one thing, and that will become clear by the end. Also, if it doesn't seem that great, then sorry, but it turns out that it's kind of hard writing a chapter that focuses only on Superman and his side of the adventures in the DCAU, at least in the way that I was going for.**_

 _ **Speaking of difficulty, one thing I forgot to mention in the last chapter's author's notes was that a big reason that I put off starting this story for so long was the fact that I'm basically writing a crossover about two great franchises, ie Justice League and MARVEL with a focus on Captain America (And before anyone asks, yes that means there will be other MARVEL characters appearing in this story's continuity, but I'm not going to say who just yet). I've read a lot of Justice League crossover stories, and they're all really good, and the series was great too, so I hope you can understand why I may be a little nervous about writing this kind of story. I've got a lot to live up to if I want it to be really good.**_

 _ **Anyways, I've kept you long enough with that little blah-blah-blah about my personal anxieties, so just move on with the story whenever your ready.**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Metropolis Mayhem**

Even though J'onn had given Steve all that he needed to know about the present day telepathically, the famed super soldier still insisted on learning everything else that he felt he would need to know the old fashioned way: through books and research. It was not until after several trips to the library in which Steve would pause and stare at various different things for a few minutes, such as video cameras and television sets with colored images, that Clark finally felt that he should introduce the man out of time to the internet as an additional way of helping him, and keeping people from staring at him so much. Steve was extremely grateful for this, as the internet definitely helped to speed things up for him, and soon enough, he decided he was finally ready to see what else the world had to offer outside of the library and Clark's very, _very_ nice apartment. It honestly amazed Steve that Clark was able to afford such a place on a reporter's salary.

When Clark finally brought him to the place that he worked at though, it quickly began to make a little more sense to Steve, as the Daily Planet certainly seemed to be much more famous and well-read than Clark had first led him to believe. The building was probably one of the tallest skyscrapers in Metropolis, and the extravagant globe on top of the building really seemed to serve as one of the greatest landmarks in the city as well, and the inside of the place made Steve think that this was probably the paradise version of a newspaper workplace, because it looked nothing like some of the newspaper offices he had ever seen before, whether it be in movies or real life. Of course, Steve quickly learned that there was one other reason why Clark would like working here after someone called out to Clark and the man from another planet instantly brightened up a little.

"Hey Smallville, it's about time you showed up," a woman with long dark hair in a white skirt and a purple business suit remarked once she had reached them. When she noticed that Clark had company, her eyes seemed to brighten up a little with intrigue and something else that Steve could not identify beyond the fact that a lot of women seemed to have it in their eyes when they looked at him after he was given the super soldier serum. "Who's your handsome friend, Kent," the woman then asked, clearly missing the slightly annoyed look Clark gained when he heard her call Steve handsome.

"Lois, this is Steve Rogers. Steve, this is Lois Lane, one of the Daily Planet's best reporters," Clark introduced after clearing his throat a little.

"What do you mean 'one of the best', Smallville," Lois lightly demanded. "The only one who's ever scooped a buy line before me is you, and that's because you were lucky or because of whatever devious secret you have." She then held a hand out to Steve and said, "It's nice to meet you, Steve."

"Likewise, Miss Lane," Steve replied as he accepted the handshake, not failing to notice the strong grip the woman had when he did. "Pretty impressive grip there," the super soldier commented.

"Chalk it up to being a military brat when I was growing up," Lois shrugged in response.

"You come from a military family?"

"Yeah. My dad's a general," Lois nodded. "Why you ask?"

"I'm also a…military brat," Steve replied. "Both my parents died serving their country."

"Sorry to hear that," Lois told Steve, instantly feeling a little guilty for bringing up what was likely a sore subject. She then attempted to change the subject to something a little less sad and asked, "So what brings you to Metropolis? I hope it's not so that Kent can bore you with all of his stories of growing up on the farm."

Steve had to crack a small smile at Lois's little jab at Clark, even though it did not seem to bother him all that much. It actually made him wonder what the famous Daily Planet reporter would think if she knew that she was teasing Superman in doing so, which led him to wonder if Lois knew Clark's secret identity. Looking at Clark, Steve could not really figure out how she could not know, seeing as the only thing that could really make people think that Clark Kent was not Superman was the fact that Clark wore glasses and seemed to slouch a little, giving him a mild-mannered kind of feel. It was probably just him, but somehow, even with the act Clark seemed to be putting up, Steve could not see how anyone could not figure out how Superman was Clark Kent.

Steve decided that he would ask Clark about that sort of thing later, and instead just answered Lois's question by saying, "I'm actually just here so that I can rediscover my place in the world. I've kind of just found myself having a…world changing experience that's making me wonder about a number of things in my life."

"One of those journeys of self-discovery shticks, huh," Lois lightly smirked. "Well, assuming nothing happens that leads you to end up in the middle of a crisis involving Superman, you definitely couldn't have picked a better place to start than Metropolis."

Steve nodded in thanks for that, mentally noting that it did not seem like Lois knew Clark's secret identity after all, and then allowed the two reporters to show him a little more of the office, including an introduction to their photographer friend, Jimmy Olsen. In all honesty, Steve was actually really impressed with the pictures that Jimmy had taken, not just of Superman, but in general as well, and the fact that the kid was so honest and good-natured just reinforced the reasons why Steve could see how Clark was such good friends with the younger man, but that also explained how a spirited woman like Lois was able to drag the poor kid along on some of her crazier leads for stories.

Before the three could go any further, an elderly looking man suddenly burst out of a nearby office and shouted, "Kent, Lane, we just got news from Stryker's saying that Metallo, Livewire, and Parasite have just escaped! Get down there and get the story on how three of Superman's toughest enemies all managed to get out of prison on the double!"

"On it chief," Lois called back. She then looked to Clark and said, "You go on ahead, Kent. I need to get a couple of things real quick and then I'll meet you there. Jimmy, mind showing Kent's friend to the lounge so he can wait there for us before getting your camera?"

"Sure thing, Miss Lane," Jimmy nodded in reply, and he then quickly motioned for Steve to follow him just as Clark disappeared around the corner while Lois went to her desk. As the two made their way to the lounge, Jimmy seemed to start getting a little worried for some reason, and Steve could hear him muttering something about Metallo, instantly drawing the super soldier's curiosity.

"Is something wrong, Jimmy," Steve finally asked.

Jimmy just shrugged in response and sighed, "It's just that the last time Metallo was around, he kind of used me to get to Superman, and I almost got crushed in a trash compactor at the junkyard."

"Yeah, good times, huh kid," a new voice suddenly asked, and the two immediately spun around to see a man who had a face that was half metal, glowing green eyes, and a metal hand had just walked into the room. It was amazing to Steve how someone like that made it past security, but when the man discarded a large hat and a glove, it started to make a little more sense. "And now you get to help me take down the Man of Steel again," the man continued on.

"Metallo," Steve asked Jimmy.

Jimmy just nodded in reply while Metallo stared at Steve for a minute in confusion. "Have we met somewhere before," Metallo finally asked the older man. "You look familiar."

"Sorry, but I think I'd remember meeting a scumbag like you," Steve retorted, and the next thing anyone knew, Steve had thrown a nearby cup of coffee into Metallo's face, catching the machine man off-guard long enough for Steve to pull Jimmy out of the room to safety.

"You do know he's probably going to want to kill you now, right," Jimmy asked, finding himself worrying more for Steve's safety than his own, mostly because of the signal watch that Superman had given him.

"He wouldn't be the first," Steve muttered in reply as they made it into the elevator. "I need to get something from Clark's car."

"Well he's probably long gone by now, so good luck with that," Jimmy stated, but Steve had a hunch that Clark had just flown to his destination after changing into Superman, and that hunch was immediately proven true when they finally reached the parking garage and found Clark's car in the same space that he had left it. "Guess he decided to save gas and took a cab," Jimmy just shrugged as Steve started trying to open the trunk of the vehicle.

Steve quickly found a reason to work faster when Metallo suddenly blasted the stairwell doors open and started stomping towards them with a vicious glare on his face. Jimmy did not need to think twice before he hit the transmitter in his watch, but he knew that Superman was not likely to show up in the next few seconds no matter how fast he was, and there was a good chance that Metallo would have killed Steve and taken him by the time Superman had arrived, so he simply shut his eyes and started praying that something would happen that would help them in the next few seconds. Thankfully, something did, because someone that was either really brave or really foolish suddenly came up from behind Metallo and hit him in the back of his head with a large cement block, and Jimmy had to give a small sigh of relief when he saw that it was Lois who had just come to their rescue.

The young photographer's relief immediately morphed back into worry again when Metallo turned his attention to the famous reporter and gave a malicious grin as he said, "Well this just makes things all the better. Superman's pal and Lane will make it all the more easier to lure him to his end."

Metallo's hand was already holding Lois's arm before she could get so much as two steps away from him, but before he could do anything else, something very fast and very hard hit him in the head again, causing him to relinquish his grip on Lois before he turned around to see who had attacked him this time. When he did, his eyes immediately found Steve as he caught his trusted his shield and then strapped it onto his right arm as he shouted, "Alright metal mouth; you want a fight? You've got one!"

Jimmy and Lois were both instantly looking at Steve like he was crazy when they heard that. Here was a guy that they just met, challenging Metallo, someone who had gone toe-to-toe with _Superman_ multiple times, and the only thing he had as a weapon against the mechanical menace was a glorified trashcan lid! At least, that was what they were thinking, until Jimmy saw the red and white stripes and gleaming star on the shield, which immediately led him to wonder if Steve was who he was beginning to think he was. Such thoughts were quickly interrupted when he and Lois saw Steve charge right towards Metallo, his shield forward, and then slam the circular, metal disc right into Metallo's chest. After regaining his bearings, Metallo attempted to strike back by throwing a powerful punch at Steve, only to cause a resounding clang to echo through the garage when his fist struck the indestructible shield. Steve then began pushing Metallo back with all of his might, until he spun his left arm out to hit Corben in the side, which he immediately followed up with a hard kick to disorient Metallo long enough for him to slam the edge of his shield into the metal maniac's chest, sending Corben crashing down onto his back a good distance away from Steve.

"Whoa," Lois gasped with an excited grin. One look at the woman who was always being rescued by Superman, and Jimmy immediately knew that Lois was already thinking she had just found another Pulitzer-winning story. That idea quickly became unlikely when Metallo suddenly shot up once again and blasted Steve with a laser at point-blank, and since Steve had not been expecting the attack, he was unable to raise his shield to defend himself before it hit.

"You've got a lot of spirit in you, stranger, but sadly, that'll be all that's left of you when I'm done," Metallo commented as he made his way over to Steve, ready to deliver the final blow. Steve just glared up at Metallo in response, until Metallo suddenly cried out in pain due to being hit by a pair of laser beams from an unseen source and then ended up face planting into the wall with a smoking back.

"Normally I'd make some kind of comment about scrap yards, but seeing as how there's a really irritating ringing in my ears right now, I think you'll understand why it's hard for me to think straight," a new voice commented, and the other three individuals in the garage immediately turned to see none other than Superman's blonde cousin floating down to the floor with her hands clamped firmly over her ears as she tried to block out whatever sound she had been talking about. "Seriously, someone shut that noise off before it makes my brain turn to mush," Supergirl half-growled, irritably.

"Uh, sorry," Jimmy called out after turning off his signal watch. "It's something Superman gave me a while back in case I needed his help."

Supergirl just smiled in understanding to the redheaded photographer, but that smile quickly changed to a look of pain as she cried out in agony over being hit by a green laser beam, courtesy of Metallo. "I would've preferred Superman, but I guess I can settle for his bratty little sidekick," Corben said as he prepared another blast of kryptonite infused energy.

When he fired said blast, Steve did not even hesitate to think before jumping in the path of the beam to keep it from hitting Supergirl with his shield, but the blast was so powerful that its energy started to tear away at the clothes he was wearing. When it finally ceased, Steve was very glad that he wore his costume underneath his civilian attire, just in case he decided that he needed it, so he immediately tore away what was left of the shirt and jacket he had been wearing to reveal his red, white, and blue suit for everyone to see clear as day, ultimately giving everyone present a very great shock.

"I don't believe it," Jimmy gasped. "Steve's…Captain America? Captain America is alive?"

"Alive and well, son," Steve nodded proudly as he deflected another blast from Metallo with his shield.

Supergirl just glanced between the patriotic hero and the two Daily Planet reporters before she finally asked, "Who's Captain America?"

"You don't do that well in History Class, do you kid," Lois asked.

"It's kind of hard when most of the history you've learned is that of another planet's," Supergirl shamelessly shrugged. The blonde teen quickly brought her attention back to the fight at hand, and shouted to Steve, "I can't get close to do anything to him so long as the kryptonite is inside him."

"The what," Steve shouted over the laser blasts that were bombarding his shield.

"The glowing green rock in his chest," Supergirl pointed out, leading Steve to spot said rock in a matter of seconds. "It's what's powering his body and keeping him alive."

"So we'll kill him if we take it out," Steve asked, honestly hoping that was not the case, because otherwise, they would all be in big trouble.

"He'll be able to live without it for a few hours or so," Supergirl replied, but her light shrug clearly showed that she was not all that sure about such facts. Still, it was all they had to work with at the time, and that was good enough for Steve to act on. The minute Metallo's next blast ceased, Captain America charged in as fast as he could, and delivered a powerful spin kick to Metallo's head before he plunged his hand into Metallo's chest and yanked the kryptonite out of him. Seeing that the rock that was so fatal to her was now out of Metallo's systems, Supergirl immediately charged in and dealt a powerful blow that sent Metallo flying out of the parking garage and into a nearby construction site, where she grabbed a number of metal supports to wrap Metallo in to keep him from escaping.

When she turned around to see Lois, Jimmy, and Captain America approaching, she had to give a bright smile at another job well done as she said, "Nice moves back there, Corporal."

"It's Captain, Supergirl," Steve corrected, but anything else he was going to say was immediately lost when the flash from Jimmy's camera caught his attention.

"Now this is what I call a great front page story," Lois commented after pulling out her pen and notepad. "'Captain America Lives Again'. Any chance I can get a comment on whether or not you're going to be helping Superman out in Metropolis now, or are you joining the Justice League?"

"I'm actually a little undecided on that at the moment," Steve admitted. He then glanced to Supergirl and at Metallo and found he could not help but think about what might have happened if he had not acted when he did. Thinking about this and how he had been so quick to jump in to help someone he had just met made Steve think that maybe he should consider staying with the hero business, until he suddenly thought of something a little strange. "Shouldn't Superman have shown up by now? If Jimmy's watch acts as a signaling device to call him, then why isn't he here yet?"

"Maybe he's in the middle of dealing with something else," Jimmy shrugged. "I mean, I may be Superman's pal, but I can't really expect him to always be able to drop everything just to help me out, especially since he helped form the Justice League."

"I don't know about that," Supergirl denied. "If he did hear it, then he would've made it a top priority to get here as soon as he could, and I just saw him flying over to Stryker's Island on the way over here. That's not really a long journey for him."

"Agreed. Something doesn't feel right," Steve stated. "And I get the feeling we'll have to look for answers over at Stryker's."

* * *

With Supergirl's help, the two heroes had managed to get to Stryker's Penitentiary in no time at all, though Steve did not really feel all that comfortable with having to make the young woman carry him all that way, despite her insistence that it was no problem at all. Once they had met up with the police and the warden, they quickly learned that Livewire and Parasite ambushed Superman mere minutes after the Man of Steel had arrived, and considering that Parasite could drain Superman's powers out of him, you did not need to be Batman to figure out what happened from there. Steve could immediately tell that Supergirl was worried about what was happening to her cousin when they were told that Parasite had dragged Superman off after Livewire disappeared, so he immediately did his best to try and keep the young girl from feeling too depressed and worried by reassuring her that they would find Superman in no time.

Supergirl had to smile in thanks to Steve for his words, but there was no denying it was not quite as bright as her usual smile. Still, the fact that she was able to smile at all was something that Steve would count as a victory in this regard, so with that dealt with for the moment, the two quickly set to work tracking down any lead that they could to try and find the missing Man of Steal. Between Steve talking with a few thugs and lowlifes that were reasonably well-informed and Supergirl's multitude of different visions, one would think that they would have found Superman in no time, but unfortunately, they could not comb the entire city in one day, and Metropolis was much too large for two people to search, even if one of them was faster than a speeding bullet, so unfortunately, they did not find any leads for a few days, even with help from the contacts and resources that Lois had at her disposal.

Steve knew that going so long with very little success was not going to do much good for Supergirl, so he figured that he might as well try to get to know the young girl when they stopped for a lunch break on the fourth day of their search. Supergirl was a little hesitant to tell him all that much at first, but when she learned that Steve knew Superman's secret identity, she felt a little more comfortable with sharing. After a very long discussion, Steve learned that her real name was Kara, and that she and her family had been on Krypton's sister planet when it was destroyed. When that happened, the planet known as Argos was thrown from orbit and ended up turning into a frozen wasteland, where she and her family spent the next several years in cryogenic sleep until Superman found them, only to discover that she was the only survivor. Steve's heart was quick to go out to the poor girl, as unlike Clark, she had actually grown up on her home planet and knew what it had been like before its untimely demise, and given that she was still only a teenager, Steve had to admit that he was impressed that she was able to remain so strong after learning such terrible news.

"It's not like it's really that big of a deal," Kara shrugged as she took a small bite into the burger she had bought for herself when they had stopped for lunch at a nearby dinner. "At least I still have Clark, and I've been able to do a lot of good since coming to Earth, even though Clark insists that I stay on his parents' farm. Not that I'm ungrateful for the Kents taking me in and giving me a home, but Smallville is just so…well, I think you can figure out what kind of problem I'd have with it just from the town's name, even without knowing it's a bit of a farm town."

"Still, you seem like you've come to live with it rather well," Steve told her. "After I lost my parents, I spent nearly all my time alone in my apartment, sulking in my own misery until Bucky finally snapped me out of it. Of course, losing Bucky probably wasn't all that much better, seeing as I went for a drink as soon as I had gotten back from the mission, only to find out I can't get drunk. To be honest, I kind of wish I could right now, seeing as everyone and everything I ever knew and cared about are all gone now; lost to history."

Kara could tell that this was really bothering Steve, so she immediately placed a reassuring hand on his gloved one and said, "You know, Clark used to always tell me that while Earth may never replace my home planet, there's no reason why I can't learn to love and accept Earth as my home now, and after a while, I found that he was right. Maybe Earth isn't anything like it was when you went under, but at least it's still around, and you've still got a home here. You just need to learn about it all over again, and if you do decide to stick with this hero stuff, I'd say that we'd all be a lot better off."

Steve looked at Kara in surprise for a minute, having not expected something so profound from the young girl, which is why he could not help but chuckle, "And here I thought I was supposed to be cheering you up."

Kara ended up sharing in the laughter at that comment until she suddenly froze in wide-eyed shock for a minute and then shot up to her feet. "It's Clark! I can hear him crying out in pain," Kara exclaimed.

Steve's smile was instantly replaced with a serious expression that he often wore whenever he went out into a battlefield back during the war, and once he had made sure his shield was secured on his arm, and his helmet was strapped on, he looked to Kara and said, "Then let's get over there, soldier."

Kara smiled in agreement, and immediately scooped Steve up in his arms before flying them off in the direction that she had heard her cousin crying out from, all the while hoping that they would not be too late.

* * *

Superman could only cry out in agony as Parasite drained his powers away once again, leaving him vulnerable enough for Livewire to be able to hurt him with an easy electric jolt. The two villains were really enjoying the spoils that their little ambush at Stryker's had awarded them with, because even though Parasite did not seem to be able to learn Superman's secret identity after absorbing his powers like he normally would be able to, they were still able to gain an easy way to get revenge on the Man of Steal for all the times he had beaten them in the past, and thus they were left free to do whatever they wanted to do to Metropolis once he finally could not take anymore. In all honesty, they could probably have gone on like this forever, but they had to just make sure that the Kryptonian stayed right where he was at the moment, or else none of what they had done so far would mean anything.

Fortunately for Superman, the villains' fun was about to come to an abrupt end, if the exploding wall that granted access to Supergirl was any indication. Neither villain was too worried about dealing with Superman's sidekick, a fact that Livewire made abundantly clear when she shouted, "You're a little late to the party Super-brat. You're dear old cousin is already providing all the entertainment we could ever need."

"Well then I guess I'll have to disappoint you, because this party's over," Supergirl retorted, and she immediately flew straight ahead to smash both of her fists into one of the two villains. Livewire did not hesitate to flash away in a burst of electricity, but Supergirl was not about to let the smart-mouthed woman get away so easily and immediately took off after her. Parasite was about to intercept Kara until his feet were knocked out from under him by Captain America's shield.

"You didn't really think that she came alone, did you," Steve shouted once he had caught his shield on his arm.

Parasite just looked at Captain America for a minute until he suddenly laughed and asked, "What're you gonna do? I've got all of Superman's powers, so nothing you do can hurt me."

To prove his point, Parasite immediately lunged directly at Captain America, only to end up colliding with a wall when Steve moved out of the way at the last second. Parasite quickly shook the cobwebs out of his head and charged in again, but Cap was quick to dodge every blow that Parasite threw at him until he ducked down and kicked Parasite's feet out from under him once more, leaving him open for Steve to bash his shield into his head. When he saw where Parasite had landed, Steve immediately gave his shield another hard throw, and the metal disc immediately hit a power junction that caused a massive electric surge to be set off directly into Parasite, and the absorbing villain found he could only scream in pain until he fell unconscious, indicating that it had been quite a while since he last absorbed any of Superman's powers.

"Having a big gun doesn't mean anything if you can't use it right," Captain America told the unconscious villain before he moved to help Superman out of the chains he was tied up in.

"Thanks for the rescue," Superman weakly moaned to Steve. "Kara…"

"Don't worry, soldier. I'm sure she'll be able to hold out until we can get to her," Steve reassured his friend and Superman had to smile in thanks once again before the two headed off to help the younger Kryptonian finish dealing with Livewire.

They did not have to go all that far though, as Supergirl suddenly came to them after being blasted by Livewire, much to the madwoman's amusement. When Livewire noticed Steve and Superman approaching, she had to gasp before her usual smirk returned and she said, "Hey love the look, Stars-and-Stripes. Really old fashioned soldier-like."

"Well someone once told me that sometimes people need a little old-fashion," Steve replied as he readied his shield once again.

Livewire just laughed as she said, "You seriously think that little piece of metal is gonna help you against a girl that's living electricity? Man, you must be as stupid as you look, Stars-and-Stripes."

Steve did not say anything in reply this time, but instead just threw his shield towards the sprinkler system that Livewire did not realize she had been standing under until after the shield had hit it and released a massive amount of water on her. As Livewire cried out in pain, Superman quickly scooped up Kara to pull her out of the way before the electrified water could reach her, while Steve retrieved his shield and jumped to higher ground where he and the two cousins could watch the fireworks that did not die down until Livewire was unconscious. When they saw that the problem was dealt with, the three then exchanged a small smile between themselves both in thanks for the help they had each given one another, and in congratulations for stopping the two supervillains.

* * *

A few hours later saw Livewire and Parasite being carted off to join Metallo behind bars at Stryker's once again, and Superman was quick to tell the authorities, Kara, and Steve that he was able to find out that the three criminals had actually been hired by someone to keep him out of the way of something. He did not know exactly what it was, but given that there was only one person who could have engineered the villains' escape and paid them for such a job, while also gaining a profit from whatever venture that may have been undertaken, it was pretty clear to Superman and Supergirl who had been behind it, even if there was not any evidence to support the theory. Steve was not a big fan of hearing that someone was going to be getting away with whatever crime had been committed, but Superman was happy to reassure Steve that they would get the man responsible soon enough, much to Cap's relief.

Such relief was a bit short-lived, as the very next day saw Steve's face on the front page of the Daily Planet newspaper, and thus the world found itself giving Captain America a grand hero's welcome back as a result. Steve did not really mind the attention all that much, but even he started to find having so many people calling out and asking him for an autograph or telling him how great he was every few minutes or so became annoying after a while. Kara and Clark actually found Steve's misfortune to be a little funny, but only Kara openly showed it when she burst out laughing a few times after watching Steve try to evade his fans however he could, while Clark just managed to suppress his own laughter behind a highly amused smile.

Even with all the new drama and attention, Steve would not deny that he was very grateful to the two cousins for helping him to find that he was still able to make a difference in the world, no matter how much things had changed, and so he was happy to inform Clark that he was ready to get back into the action as Captain America once again whenever he needed to. Clark was happy to hear that, but he was not going to have Steve join the League just yet, as he still needed to get to know more of the modern world, and really adjust to his new surroundings. This was something Steve whole-heartedly agreed with, but it came as a bit of a surprise when he heard about where he would be going next on his little journey in the modern world, especially when he found out who had suggested said destination, or rather, requested that he come there.

"Batman wants me to come to Gotham," Steve asked when Clark told him the news. Even after spending so little time out of ice, Steve was well aware that Batman was extremely picky about having other heroes in "his city."

Clark just shrugged in response as he said, "I can't really believe it either, but he said that it would be a good idea for you to see that not everywhere in the world is as peaceful as Metropolis usually is, and he needed someone to help his partners look out for the city while he was away on business anyways."

Steve was not sure just what kind of business would draw Batman away from the city he cared about so much, but somehow, he got the feeling that he probably did not want to know, so he simply nodded and accepted the offer, but he declined Clark's offer to fly him over to Gotham, as he felt he had enough flying around with Kryptonian assistance in the past few days already. Seeing how adamant Steve was about not having him fly the super soldier to Gotham, Clark just nodded and said that he would ask a friend to arrange for a plane to take him there, and that gave Steve more than enough time to pack whatever he thought he would probably need for his stay in Gotham and say goodbye to Kara before he left.

"Next time you're in the neighborhood, tell Clark to bring you over to the farm," Kara told Steve as she gave him a light hug at the airport when the day came for Steve to depart. "Oh, and say hi to my friend Barbra for me while you're over there as well if you run into her. Trust me; you'll be glad to have her around if you get into any trouble."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind," Steve assured the teenager. He then looked to Clark and shook hands with the disguised Man of Steal as he said, "You should be proud to have such a brave cousin, even if she is a little headstrong."

"Believe me, I am proud of her," Clark replied with a prideful glance in Kara's direction, earning him a beaming smile from his cousin before he continued his conversation with Steve. "I'm glad you've decided to keep being a hero, Steve. The world needs more people like you around. Trust me, you were actually a big inspiration to me when I was growing up, and you still are."

"Well, if Captain America is an inspiration to Superman, then I guess that's all the more reason for me to not hang up the shield just yet," Steve joked in reply, and after sharing a laugh with the two cousins, Steve picked up his bags and turned to board his plane, already wondering just what would await him in the city of Gotham.

* * *

 ** _AN: Okay, before anyone says anything, I'm well aware that Supergirl seems to show up in every Justice League crossover story there is, but to be fair, it's kind of hard not to have her show up. She does eventually join the League, and being Superman's cousin that everyone knows about, it's only natural that Steve meet her sooner or later. Speaking of things that were bound to happen sooner or later, who else here thought I was going to make it take a while until word of Captain America's return hit the press, and who thought it would be someone other than Lois Lane? That woman is pretty much the person to go to for superhero related news in the DC Universe, in case you haven't noticed, so it just made sense to me to have her write the story about Captain America's return for the world._**

 ** _Speaking of which, yes, Cap's now known to everyone on Earth, but really, it's not all that different from Wonder Woman, J'onn, and Green Lantern's identities being known to everyone, so yeah, the only ones on the Justice League with secret identities will still be Flash, Batman, and Superman. Speaking of the other Leaguers, looks like we all know who Cap's probably going to meet next, but it doesn't seem like there's going to be a team-up with Batman. Don't think that means that Cap won't be working with at least one of Gotham's other protectors though. Want to see what I mean? Then move Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _Cap's journey of self-discovery takes him to one of the darkest cities on Earth, and he soon finds himself in conflict with some of Batman's greatest foes as a result, along with a dangerous mercenary. How will the super soldier of World War II handle the way things are done in Gotham, and can he be of any assistance in helping Batgirl and Nightwing stop the mercenaries that are now terrorizing Gotham? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 3: A Patriot Among Knights** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	3. A Patriot Among Knights

_**AN: Okay so, we've got us another chapter of Justice Marvel, and this time around, there's a bit more action, but considering that the location of the chapter is Gotham City, it would probably more surprising if we didn't see some action here. I'll be honest, this was definitely harder to write than I thought it would be. I mean considering how much Batman stuff is out there, I figured it would be easy, but after thinking about how good a lot of past Batman franchises were, it quickly became harder to write a chapter that was really befitting of all that hype, so please tell me whether or not I did well here.**_

 _ **?: Well in all honesty, I don't think the quality is anything to laugh about...oh but I'm gonna laugh anyway. HAHAHAHAHAHA!**_

 _ **AN: What the?! Joker, how'd you get in here?**_

 _ **Joker: Oh really, lyokoMARVELanime, what made you think you could throw a party around here in my neck of the woods without me showing up to provide so much needed laughs.**_

 _ **AN: Yeah, I've already got one nutcase constantly annoying me in these notes, so I don't need you thank you very much.**_

 _ **Joker: Oh you mean that dead doornail, Dumbpool? Please, like he's really got anything on my kind of crazy.**_

 _ **Deadpool: Please, I'm way better than you, and I've got a bigger fanbase too, or didn't you see that Super Power Beat Down on Youtube where I kicked your ass?**_

 _ **Joker: As I recall, you didn't do it alone. You had help in that, and besides, that sort of thing is decided more by the fans than anything, even they are pretty good.**_

 _ **AN: Okay, before this goes any further, please start the chapter. Seriously, start the thing, RIGHT NOW!**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 3: A Patriot Among Knights**

Gotham: a city of darkness, disorder, and chaos; where some of the most horrible and insane of criminal lowlifes choose to make their home; a place that is said to force one to indulge in the powers darkness in order to live so much as one more day; a city that is overrun by crime lords, corrupt politicians and law enforcers, and the place that one Steve Rogers currently found himself after a very long flight. In all honesty, Steve actually wished that he still had his old motorcycle, because then he would not have had to trouble Clark's mysterious friend with getting him a plane ride here, and in all honesty, he actually preferred driving somewhere if it were possible. Despite the grievances though, Steve was at his next destination now, though after looking around at some of the city, he was beginning to think he would eventually wish he had not come to Gotham. Every few blocks or so, he saw piles of litter in the alleyways, thugs shaking down good businesses for protection money, and even someone trying to rape an innocent woman in a dark alley. He was quick to stop that last one before anything too terrible happened, but it did not hide the fact that the short stroll he had taken after leaving the airport was more than enough to show him why Batman was always so serious and dark-minded, because a city like this would likely make it hard for anyone to really see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Steve decided that he would worry about such things later, as he had far more important concerns at the moment, starting with the fact that he had no idea where he was going or if he was supposed to have met someone after he got off his plane. Clark had never really said one way or another if Batman was going to meet with him before he left, but given the fact that he had not seen any sign of the Dark Knight, Steve had to figure that Batman had already left on whatever business he had outside of his city, so Steve pressed on in an attempt to try and find one of Batman's allies, all while stopping whatever scum he happened to come across every few blocks or so. Truth be told, Steve had been doing so for so long that night that he was beginning to wonder if he would have to try and contact either Superman, Supergirl, or someone else from the League to help him out with finding Batman's partners, but that quickly became unnecessary when he got a clue to the whereabouts, or rather, what was practically a neon-lit sign that was shouting out their current location.

 _"Hello Gotham,"_ a high-pitched voice cackled over the speakers of a television set in a nearby store window, and Steve immediately turned to see the image of a man in a purple suit with clown make-up on his face being displayed on the screen. _"It's your favorite psycho, old Uncle Joker here, and I've got a little message for dear old Batman. You see, I've recently gone to a great deal of trouble to plan my latest scheme, as you may have noticed by now, and I was actually hoping you would try to stop me by now, Bats. So imagine my disappointment when instead of you, I get two of your little kiddies instead. So here's the deal, you've got to come on down to my current little joke shop, and try to rescue little Batgirl and Nightwing here, and you may want to hurry, because I've got a great big time bomb planted just beneath their feet that's set to go off by sun-up. Oh and Commissioner Jimbo, I'd better not see you or any of the other boys in blue from GCPD, because if I do, then I press this button, and KA-BLEWIE! No waiting. I'll see you real soon, Bats!"_

Joker's laughter seemed to echo through the streets as the feed cut out, but it did not do so before showing Batman's two young partners strung up in the air with chains around their wrists, and the clown showing a remote detonator for the world to see. People who had seen the broadcast were all beginning to worry, as Batgirl and Nightwing were both people that Gotham could count on when Batman was not around to protect them, and now, Joker had captured them both. They were not forgetting about Robin of course, but given how young the Boy Wonder was, and the fact that he had not been seen since Batman had last left Gotham for business, they were not very optimistic about Robin's chances of helping his older partners. As the people continued having a small panic attack, no one noticed that Steve had narrowed his eyes at the screen, partly in anger, and partly because he had noticed something else: a clue as to where Joker's current hideout was.

That was probably something that Joker was counting on Batman to notice so he could spring a trap on the Dark Knight, but Steve was more than willing to bet that Joker was not counting on Captain America. With this in mind, Steve did not hesitate to find the nearest, calm person he could and asked, "Can you tell me how to get to the old Gotham Steal Mill from here?"

* * *

Despite his usual act, attitude, and clown-like appearance, Joker was not really all that happy to say the least. He had honestly been hoping that Batman would have shown up a long time ago, but so far, he had only had to deal with two of Bats' sidekicks. Sure they were trained by Batman and all that, but they were just not as much fun as the big bad bat, given how they were not as uptight and serious as Batman was. The only consolation was that he and Harley Quinn were able to enjoy tormenting the two captured heroes until Batman did show up, so Joker had to admit that did help his attitude a little, but after a few more hours, it quickly soured again, a fact that Harley had quickly noticed, much to his annoyance.

"Hey Mistah J, I'm Batman. Come on, eat me. You know you want to. Eat me," Harley said in a deep voice while waving a Batman shaped cookie near Joker's face.

Joker just rolled his eyes before he looked to the woman he had twisted into his little bitch and said, "Now Harley, I know that you're trying to cheer me up, but you see, when I keep missing out on a chance to turn big old Bats' frowning disposition around into a mad laughing death…IT REALLY KILLS MY APPETITE!"

"Guess that means you'll be missing out on a lot of meals once you get back to Arkham," Nightwing grunted in retort from where he was chained up. His reward for that comment was another electric shock from one of the two clowns' goons, much to Batgirl's hidden horror.

"Let that be a lesson to you. Nobody likes a smart-mouth, kid," Joker told Nightwing. He then danced over to the two captured heroes and said, "You know, while I've got you both here, I've really got to ask something I've been wondering for a while now. Just what exactly is a 'Nightwing', and also, why follow old Bat-brain? I mean really, all that brooding and seriousness, and don't get me started on how it seems like it's always work, work, work with him. Seriously, why not go for something a little more fun like a clown?"

"Come a little closer and I'll give you a good idea of both answers," Nightwing growled, struggling to reach anything he could use to free himself as he did.

Joker had to chuckle a little at that. "Nice try kid, but old Uncle J wasn't born yesterday, so leave the funny stuff to me."

"How about you let us know when the funny stuff actually starts to be funny, and we'll do just that," Batgirl retorted.

"Shut up! You're just jealous 'cause you don't have Mistah J's sense of humor and pizzazz," Harley snapped.

"Now, now, Harley, no need to defend my honor," Joker assured the clown girl. "After all, they're just grasping at straws at this point in a hopeless attempt to stop me from killing Bats when he gets here. It's actually a little funny when you think about it." Joker had to have a small laugh once he said that before he pulled out a radio from his jacket pocket and called out to the goons Harley had standing guard outside. "Hey boys, what's the word up there? Any sign of anything bat-like yet?" If Joker was expecting a response, he was quickly disappointed, because all he heard was static. "Hello…Hey, if you chumps are sleeping on the job, you'll make me one very sad clown, and you don't want that, do you…Oh damn it, someone answer me!" Joker still received no response, so he simply looked to his sidekick and asked, "Harley, you did send a guard outside to guard the place didn't you?"

"Sure thing, puddin'. I don't know why they ain't answering either," Harley shrugged in response.

"Oh I think that should be quite obvious," Joker grinned in twisted excitement as he put his radio away. He then looked up into the rafters above him and called out, "Ladies, gentlemen, and bats of all ages, looks like it's time for the main attraction of tonight's performance: Batman and his little sidekicks ending in a glorious display of fireworks! Oh I can just see your face now, Bats, as all hope of saving your little friends vanishes from your eyes, because you see that was the plan all along: to lure you in and make you watch as I end your little sidekicks' miserable existences. So what're you waiting for? Come on down and enjoy the show, Bats!" Joker continued to dance around the room as he smiled up to the ceiling looking for any sign of Batman, even as he continued to call out, "Where oh where are you Batman? We can't really have you see the kiddies die without you here after all. Seriously, I know you're up there somewhere, so come down already so we can really get this party…ARGH!"

Joker's sudden cry of pain directed everyone's attention towards him just in time to see him stumble back while he clutched his left arm in pain, and when they looked to see who had hit the Clown Prince of Crime, they saw, not Batman, but Captain America standing over Joker with his shield ready. "I'll be honest, even as a kid, I never did find clowns to be all that funny, but you, I just find you to be pathetic," Cap stated to the room.

Joker quickly rounded an angry glare on the captain, but when he saw who it was, his face lit up in his usual maniacal grin as he exclaimed, "Well look who it is: the original big blue boy scout himself: Captain America! I'd salute, but I think my arm's broken after you hit it with that oversized Frisbee of yours."

"Well you've only got one chance to let Nightwing, Batgirl, and any other hostages you may have go before your arm ends up not being the only thing that's broken, clown," Captain America retorted.

"Doth my ears deceive me? Captain America resorting to violence? And here I thought you were a real stand-up guy," Joker quipped in reply as he stayed true to his moniker. "But I do hate to disappoint you, Captain, but I'm afraid that I'm only letting the kids go once Bats gets here."

"Sorry, but I'm afraid Batman's unavailable right now, so I'm the best you've got," Captain America retorted as he assumed a fighting stance. "Now I'll only say this one more time: let them go. You've got no way to get out of this in one piece otherwise."

"I don't," Joker asked, and he immediately gave his usual mad cackle before continuing on. "Oh Au contraire, Mon Capitaine, it's you who's got no way out…no way out alive that is. Harley, you and the boys give this old man a great Joker welcome to Gotham!"

Cap did not need to even look to know what was going to come next, and he immediately ducked for cover as Harley and every other henchmen Joker had in the room fired on him. Steve waited behind the crates he jumped to until a break in the shooting finally came, and when it did, he quickly ran out with his shield in front of him to block the hailstorm of bullets that were coming at him until he was close enough to knockout one of Joker's henchmen with a hard left jab. A quick combination of punches, kicks, and shield bashes later and Steve spotted an opportunity to free one of the captured heroes, and he quickly took advantage of it by throwing his shield at one of the weakest points in the links of the chains holding Nightwing, causing the metal to shatter upon impact, and allowing Nightwing to drop to the floor with a hard kick to one of the remaining goons' head.

Nightwing did not need anything to be said before he grabbed the famous shield and used it to free Batgirl, and the redhead quickly glided down into the action with an incredible show of acrobatics, scooping up the shield to toss back to Captain America a few minutes after she touched the ground. Looking around, it quickly became clear to Joker that he was not going to win this fight, and immediately turned to leave, only to find his path blocked when a batarang struck the floor in front of him, courtesy of Batgirl. "Oh no fair," Joker whined.

"Life isn't fair, clown," Captain America retorted after knocking out Joker's last goon before moving to surround both Joker and Harley Quinn along with Nightwing and Batgirl. "And from where I'm standing, you're all out of tricks, so make like a good circus act, and leave the stage."

"Well I suppose I should call it quits on this little wash out," Joker moaned in false defeat, until he pointed the flower on his jacket at Cap and sprayed a stream of acid at the captain. Cap was forced duck behind his shield before the acid could hit him, and when he lowered it again, he saw that Harley had tried to make a run for it, only to be stopped by Batgirl. Joker on the other hand, was able to evade Nightwing by spraying more acid in the direction of Nightwing's feet, forcing him to leap into the air to avoid it, which gave the clown the chance to slip out. Before Joker did though, he shouted one last comment to the heroes. "And just for the record, I do jokes, not tricks. That's what that wannabe sap in Central City does."

* * *

After handing Harley Quinn over to the police, Batgirl and Nightwing led Steve up to a far-off rooftop so that they could talk and fill him in on the situation that they would be dealing with. "You know, when Batman told us he and the League had found you and brought you back, I thought that he was finally growing a sense of humor," Nightwing admitted.

"Somehow I can't really see that happening," Captain America told the long-haired boy as he looked the two heroes over. Unlike Batman, Nightwing's suit did not include a cowl, but instead a mask that only covered his eyes, letting his long, black hair flow out freely, and the only parts of Nightwing's suit that were not black were his dark silver belt and the blue, bird-like symbol on his chest. Batgirl on the other hand, was definitely something of a female version of Batman, only a few years younger if Steve had to hazard a guess. Her suit was all black save for the small bat-symbol on her chest, her belt, boots, gloves, and the inside of her cape, which were all yellow, and she also let her red hair flow out of the back of her cowl while her clear blue eyes were also not hidden by the same white lenses that Batman had in his own cowl. The two were clearly not as uptight as Batman was, if the pleasant smiles on their faces were any indication, and Steve actually found that to be something of a relief, as he was honestly expecting Batman's partners to be quiet, extremely serious, and basically like the Dark Knight.

Apparently Nightwing found Cap's comment to be rather funny, because he could not stop himself from chuckling as he said, "Well what do ya know? Captain America has a sense of humor."

"Well don't get too used to it, soldier," Steve kindly cautioned in reply. "And please, call me Steve."

"Nice to meet finally meet you, Steve, but we should probably fill you in on just what we really need your help with," Batgirl said after exchanging a quick handshake. "Nightwing and I were investigating some rumors about some big shot hiring a number of major mercenaries to act as bodyguards for some illegal shipment into Gotham before we were captured by the Joker."

"We figured the clown was one of the hired guns since the word on the street is that he's pretty desperate for cash these days, but it turned out that he was just hoping to mess with Batman as usual," Nightwing continued from there. "But we were able to find out that he had some names for at least one of the guys that are working for our mystery benefactor and it just so happened to be one of the deadliest assassins in the world: Deathstroke."

"I think I read a few old news articles about him while I was in Metropolis," Cap stated as he rubbed his chin in thought for a minute. "Wasn't he one of the various assassins that your boss went up against on the Christmas Eve in his first year as Batman?"

"The very same," Nightwing nodded in confirmation. "We weren't able to figure out anything about the identities of any of the other mercenaries, or how many others there even were, but we did trick Harley into telling us where the deal is going down, and when it's happening."

"Well don't keep me in suspense," Steve encouraged them.

"Down at the docks, in about four hours or so," Batgirl informed them. "We can get there with a few minutes to spare if we leave now and take our bikes."

"This is your city, so lead on," Steve nodded in return, and he immediately followed the two heroes back down to the street, where they had parked their motorcycles earlier that evening. Steve knew that he would have to ride with one of the two, but before he could say anything, Batgirl threw him a slightly coy smile and waved for him to climb on her bike with her.

"Relax; I'm not one to bite, Cap," Batgirl teased, leading Nightwing to chuckle at Steve as he tentatively wrapped his arms around her once he was on the bike. With Batgirl satisfied with her success in slightly embarrassing Captain America, the three were soon racing off into the night for their next destination, hoping that they would reach the scene of the next crime in time.

* * *

The three were able to reach their destination with an hour to spare, and they used that extra time to stake out various vantage points around the area that the deal would be taking place at in case they needed to make a quick escape, and anything else that they could use to their advantage as well, and they soon found the perfect place to watch from until their targets arrived. They spent the next few minutes in silence as they waited for their targets to arrive, until Steve decided to ask the two something he had been wondering for a while. "Do either of you two know why Batman does what he does in defending this city, or why he joined the League?"

The two caped crusaders exchanged a small look between themselves for a minute, as if they were silently deciding whether or not they should tell Cap what they either knew or just thought, until Nightwing eventually sighed and gave Steve a response. "His reasons for helping to form the Justice League, even though he says that he's technically a part-timer, are not really ones that we know of," the former Boy Wonder said. "I guess part of it was because he thought that being one of the only guys on the team without special powers would help them remain honest and remember that they're not invincible overlords or something, but that's just my opinion. As for why he does it, well…we can't really say all that much. It's not our place to tell you."

"All you should know for now is that something terrible happened to him a long time ago, and he now fights to keep it from happening to anyone else," Batgirl picked up. "I know you may think that his actions don't show that, but in reality, his willingness to go as far as he does is often the only way to get things done in Gotham, and it's usually the only way he knows how to fight against the darkness."

Steve let this new information run through his mind after that explanation, because it granted him insight to whole different side of Batman that he had not thought the Dark Knight had before now. It was true that he had read many accounts of Batman going to extreme lengths to solve a case or stop a criminal, but if what Batgirl and Nightwing just told him was true, he could see why he would go so far when fighting against the criminal scum of his city. Anyone that suffered from something always ends up being changed in ways that others probably would not understand, but Steve could not help but think that Batman fighting crime because of something bad happening to him was just some crazy way for the Dark Knight to get revenge on the criminals who had wronged him, and while he could understand that a little, given that he had thoughts of revenge on his mind when he went after the Red Skull that last time, that did not mean that Steve really approved of such an idea.

He would have to think about how much he approved of Batman's methods and moral reasons for being a hero later, as their targets had just arrived on the scene, with the two mercenary bodyguards appearing shortly afterwards. Deathstroke was very easy to spot, even without Nightwing pointing out the man, as his orange and black mask gave his identity away easily enough, and from where Steve and the other two were positioned, it was clear that the infamously nicknamed terminator was armed with all of his usual guns and swords, and completely outfitted in his dark blue and orange armor. The second man, though, was a mystery to the two heroes, and not just because his face was hidden by a skull shaped mask. He was also decked out in black and white armor, with a white hood up over his head, and he seemed to carry a multitude of weapons as well, ranging from a sword, a compact bow and arrows, and even his own shield, which had an intricate "T" emblazoned on it.

"Well, there's the hired help, but I don't see the buyer or the dealer," Nightwing whispered.

"Hang on. There's someone coming off one of the boats," Batgirl pointed out, and the three immediately turned to see a very large man in a black suit and what seemed to be a wrestler's mask. What really caught Steve by surprise, was the fact that this newcomer also had a long hose attached to a gauntlet on his wrist that extended to the back of the mask on his head, indicating that it was probably some sort of drug.

"Oh great," Nightwing moaned. "Now we've got to deal with Bane too. This night just keeps getting better and better."

"You know that man," Steve asked.

"Yeah," Batgirl nodded. "Bane's one of the toughest enemies that Batman has ever faced. That hose that connects his gauntlet to his mask injects a dangerous steroid known as Venom, which enhances a person's strength to superhuman levels. The best way to stop him though is to sever the hose connecting the gauntlet to his mask, as it will drain all the Venom out of him while also rendering him too weak to keep fighting."

"So basically, don't try to go for a straight up fight with the big guy," Steve summarized, and when he received nods of confirmation from both Gothamites, he turned his attention back to the deal that was unfolding before them, as some of Bane's men unloaded some large crates from the boat.

Taking out a pair of binoculars, Nightwing was quick to start analyzing the crates that Bane's men were unloading, and saw that there were not just guns in the crates, but something else as well. "Looks like Bane's offering up some earlier versions of Venom," he reported. "That doesn't seem like him since he doesn't like the idea of there being other people like him out in the world."

"Well the earlier versions of the drug is highly addictive and causes mental breakdowns, so maybe he thinks that it won't be a problem for there to be someone as strong as him if they're not able to think properly," Batgirl reasoned.

"One way to find out," Steve said as he prepared to jump down. Batgirl and Nightwing both nodded in agreement with the captain, as they had to act fast if they were going to stop this deal from taking place anyways, and they immediately fired their grappling guns at a nearby ledge in order to swing down.

The minute the three had swung down into the middle of the gathering was the same moment that all hell broke loose, and between thugs shooting and the mercenaries attacking with whatever weapon they could grab first, it was amazing that none of the three were injured the minute their feet hit the ground. Of course, dealing with the small time crooks was no problem for two people who have been trained by Batman and the world's first super soldier, but when Deathstroke, Bane, and the skull faced man stepped in, things started to get a little more difficult for them. It would have been more beneficial if the three heroes could have faced off against each villain as a group, but they were unable to do that, since it was clear that each of them would have to face each of the three one-on-one the minute that they had dispatched with most of the low-lives that had been acting as extra muscle for the respective sides. Batgirl was quick to find herself facing off against Bane's massive strength, while Captain America engaged Deathstroke, so that just left the mystery man for Nightwing to deal with.

Batgirl did not have to worry about Bane for too long, as her flexibility and smaller size made her too fast and too difficult for the massive, Spanish-speaking villain to hit, while also giving her the perfect chance to sever the hose connecting Bane's mask to the gauntlet on his wrist that pumped Venom into him, but the other two found themselves facing much more difficult odds. In the case of Captain America, it was mostly due to the fact that he had yet to have fought against someone who could actually stand on equal footing with him in this time, and Deathstroke was easily proving capable of doing just that and more with every move he made. What Steve did not realize was that Deathstroke was actually getting a bit of a thrill out of fighting the legendary super soldier as well, because it had been a long time since the infamous mercenary had fought someone as good as him other than Batman or the vigilante archer of Star City, so he could not help but laugh a little in excitement when Cap managed to score another hit on him.

"Looks like the stories about you were true," Slade commented when he paused in his attacks to ready one of his swords and began circling Steve. "You really are as good as they say, even after being gone for so long. It's not often that someone earns my respect, but anyone who does normally ends up one way in the end: dead. Killing Captain America will definitely show the world that there's no one better than Deathstroke, the Terminator."

"You wouldn't be the first one to try, Deathstroke, and you also won't be the last one to fail in trying," Cap retorted, and the two immediately charged each other again, with Deathstroke's sword quickly meeting Captain America's shield with a loud clang of metal.

Nightwing on the other hand was actually having a much more difficult time against his opponent, as the skull-masked man in white seemed to be able to counter every move he made with little to no effort at all. There were a few times that he was able to get the upper hand on the mystery man, but before he could capitalize on it, said mystery man was able to bounce back and repel the former Robin before he realized what had happened. If he were being honest though, there were actually a number of times in this fight that Nightwing felt like he was fighting against a mirror, given how this guy would seem to fight in the same way that he would without any trouble at all, and such a thing was actually rather scary to Nightwing, because the only one who could ever do that was Batman, which could only mean that this guy was probably just as good a fighter as the Dark Knight, or worse, better. His thoughts on that ended up being a fatal distraction to him, as the mystery man was soon able to knock him off his feet and into a position for a killing blow.

Just before the skull-faced man could strike though, he found his sword knocked out of his hand by a batarang, courtesy of Batgirl, and soon enough, both of Batman's young partners were facing off against the masked man, and they were giving him much more trouble together than Nightwing had been alone. Seeing that they were likely outmatched at this point, the two mercenaries signaled for their forces to retreat, and immediately blinded the three with a number of smoke pellets, leaving them coughing their lungs out until the smoke cleared to reveal that they had vanished along with their goons and a large amount of their shipments.

"Great," Nightwing groaned. "That could've gone better, and they got us with one of our own tactics too."

"From where I was, it looked like Skull-Face was using a lot more than just one of our tactics against you, Nightwing," Batgirl pointed out.

"Don't remind me."

Steve was about to say something when the sound of police sirens reached their ears, and the three turned to see Gotham PD racing onto the scene, with two men in particular, one being an older man with graying hair and a pair of glasses on his face in a brown trench coat, and the other a large man with a chubby face, a dark grey suit and a rather gruff aura to him. When the two reached the three, the large man glanced around the area with a slight scowl and said, "Think you yahoos could do anymore damage to the docks?"

Nightwing and Batgirl both seemed ready to snap at him but they were both more than able to hold it in, quickly telling Steve that the two were not really all that fond of the large man but had encountered him enough times to be used to his attitude, and so he just turned his attention the other man along with them as said individual came over to him with his hand out. "Wasn't expecting to see someone new in Gotham today, let alone you of all people," the glasses wearing man stated as he shook hands with Steve. "Commissioner Jim Gordon."

"Steve Rogers, Captain America. It's nice to meet you," Steve replied.

"Yeah right. Captain America's just an urban legend," the large man snorted.

"You mean like Batman was at one point, Bullock," Nightwing remarked with a smirk, instantly shutting up the now identified large detective. Nightwing looked back to the commissioner and started giving him the rundown of what had happened there that night. "It definitely screams smuggling operation for a high-rolling and wealthy crime lord."

"Maybe, but it could just mean that Bane was smuggling some of his drugs into the city," Gordon pointed out.

"Bane may run Santa Prisca's drug distribution operations, but even he doesn't have the pull to hire someone like Deathstroke and whoever that other guy was," Batgirl pointed out. "We'd like to take a look at what they didn't get and see if we can figure out where this stuff went based off of what was sold."

"Be my guest," Gordon offered, and the three quickly went to work on looking around the area to see what they could find. Although, Steve was not as great a detective as the two younger heroes were, so he was more than happy to let them handle a majority of the investigating, knowing all the while that this was far from over.

* * *

The investigation did not turn up any real leads for the three, as it seemed that whoever the real buyer had been, they were really good at covering their tracks, so they decided to try and find out whatever they could through Deathstroke's connection to all of this and through the identity of the unknown mercenary. In order to do that, the three found themselves in Batgirl's apartment the next night, where the redhead revealed her secret identity as Barbra Gordon to Steve, instantly telling Steve that this was the same Barbra that Kara had mentioned. When Steve asked why the commissioner's daughter was performing vigilante work with Batman, Barbra immediately explained that it was mostly due to the fact that her dad did not want her to become a police officer, even though she wanted to help people like her father did, so eventually, she found herself donning a cape and cowl of her own, originally working as an independent crime fighter, until Batman finally felt like he could trust her enough with the knowledge of his secret identity, and welcomed her into the circle.

Steve could honestly respect Barbra's reasons for becoming Batgirl, as they were not all that different from his own reasons for wanting to enlist in the army back in the Forties. The fact that she was willing to go so far just to help others really spoke volumes of her character to him, and when he remembered how her eyes seemed to gleam in pride and excitement at some points during the previous two fights, he quickly found himself realizing that despite the dark nature of Gotham and its criminal underworld, the redhead had not once lost her inner light, something that this city probably did not have much of in its people. When he looked to Nightwing to see if the young man would also be revealing his identity, the man just smirked and said that he was not going to be doing that seeing as his identity as the first Robin would probably help Steve figure out who Batman was. Steve could honestly respect that in the young man, as it showed just how loyal and faithful a friend that Nightwing was to Batman.

The three had gotten so caught up in exchanging stories that they almost missed Barbra's computer going off when it seemed to find something on their mystery mercenary. The redhead was at the computer in an instant, and after a few more keystrokes, she quickly reported what had been found. "There wasn't anything in the GCPD database on him, but there was definitely something in the Federal Database," the redhead reported. "Skull-Face's real name is Anthony Masters, alias Taskmaster. He's wanted for multiple accounts of murder, questioning involving the deaths and disappearances of several foreign diplomats, and several other crimes that put him on nearly the same level as Deathstroke, or even the League of Assassins."

"That's a real comforting thought. Ra's Al Ghul with competition," Nightwing moaned. When he noticed Steve getting ready to ask the obvious question as to who Ra's Al Ghul was, Nightwing quickly cut him off by saying, "Don't ask."

"Well get this: apparently the main reason he's so good is because he has an eidetic memory that allows him to memorize everything about his opponent in an instant, and then copy their moves almost perfectly as though they were his own," Barbra added.

"That would explain why he had more trouble taking on you both at the same time as opposed to when he was fighting just you, Nightwing," Steve reasoned. "It's not easy to keep your eyes on two opponents, and it also adds a certain level of unpredictability to your attacks as well."

"So if we want to beat him, we have to be unpredictable," Nightwing clarified.

"Well I wouldn't jump the gun just yet. We still have to find out who hired them," Barbra reminded the two. "But then again, that shouldn't be too hard, considering there's only two people in Gotham that could've had both the resources and the connections to hire both of these guys and strike a deal with Bane for some of his Venom."

"Rupert Thorne and Penguin," Nightwing finished for his redheaded partner. "And that means that we should probably pay a visit to the Iceberg Lounge."

"That will have to be another problem for another day," a familiar, deep voice interrupted, and the three quickly spun around to see Batman and Robin had entered in the room at some point. Stepping forward a bit, Batman gaze Steve a small, neutral look before he said, "Thanks for covering for me, but it's not needed anymore."

"You sure about that," Steve asked. "I've already played a part in the start of this case, so it wouldn't seem right if I didn't see it through to the end."

"If what I know about Taskmaster is anything to go off of, he'll have collected his pay and left Gotham by now, and something tells me that he'll be more of a problem for you to deal with in the future than he will be for us," Batman replied. "Besides, this is my city, and that makes this my problem."

Steve did not really like hearing this, but he knew that Batman had a point. After all, Captain America was just in Gotham to cover for Batman while he was gone, and now that Batman was back, there was no longer any need for that, so Steve simply nodded and grabbed his shield after bidding Batgirl and Nightwing goodbye and exchanging a handshake with Robin, and he then walked out the door. What none of them noticed was that Batman had actually slipped a small note into Steve's hand before he left telling the super soldier to go to Wayne Industries for something important that a friend had been keeping for him, and Steve's curiosity was quickly peaked with wonder as to why Batman would want him to go to Bruce Wayne's family company.

* * *

In all honesty, Steve had actually expected the first billionaire he would meet would be Howard Stark's son, so when he came face-to-face with Gotham's most well-known billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne, he was not really sure what to think, beyond the fact that outside the small smile that Bruce wore and the rather expensive business suit, there was something rather familiar about Mister Wayne to Steve, not just as a person, but also in the way he carried himself. Steve just shook it off as something that he had come to consider rather common among billionaires, seeing as Howard had a bit of a swagger to his walk and attitude that Bruce also seemed to have, and gladly accepted the friendly handshake that Bruce offered him before following the billionaire down into one of the lower levels of his company.

"Not that I'm ungrateful for the invite Mister Wayne, but would you mind telling me what this is all about," Steve asked.

Bruce just gave a small smirk in reply and said nothing until they came face-to-face with an older, dark skinned gentleman, with a bald scalp and some remnant of black hair on the sides of his head. "Captain Rogers, allow me to introduce my personal friend, and the acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox," Bruce announced.

"It's an honor, Captain," Lucius stated as he quickly grasped Steve's hand in a strong, eager handshake.

"Likewise Mister Fox," Steve nodded. "I do hope that you will be able to be a bit more clear on why I was asked to come here than your boss is though."

"Of course," Lucius nodded. "After all, I'm the one who asked him to pass along the message for you to come down here. I've been keeping something for you that I think should finally be returned to you."

Steve raised an eyebrow at that, but after Bruce and Lucius led him to what seemed to be a large garage, his eyes instantly lit up in awe at what was inside. There, sitting near the middle of the room, was an old, yet gleaming, custom motorcycle that was clearly outfitted with several different hidden mechanisms, and it was a bike that Steve would have been able to recognize anywhere. "My old motorcycle from the war! But how," Steve exclaimed as he walked over to examine the old bike a little better.

"My father served with you in the war," Lucius stated. "He told me that this bike belonged to you when he passed it on to me to take care of. I never did try it out for myself, but I made sure that it stayed as close to being in its original condition as possible while it was under my care, and when I heard that you were back, I figured you'd probably want this back as well, so I may have added a few new features to it that would make it even better."

"Plus this way, I may save some money on plane tickets," Bruce added in good humor, silently telling Steve that he was the person Clark had called for the plane that had brought the super soldier to Gotham.

Steve continued to marvel at the old, faithful bike that had seen him through so much in the Forties, until he finally looked at the two and said, "Thank you. You two don't know how much this means to me."

"It's our pleasure," Lucius nodded. "And if you ever need anything else in the future, we'll be happy to help out."

Steve nodded in thanks for this, and after getting a complete explanation of the old bike's new features, he was soon mounting the vehicle to head for his next destination. "If you don't mind my asking, where are you going to from here," Bruce asked when he caught Steve preparing to head out.

"A friend recommended I visit Central City at some point, and considering that's where someone that I've yet to meet lives, I think I'll be heading in that direction," Steve replied as he pulled back on the bike's throttle, gunning the engine to life.

"Well a small word of warning, there's a lot of strange things that happen over there, especially in the case of some of its well known criminals," Bruce kindly advised.

"Trust me, at this point, I don't think anything will surprise me anymore," Steve replied, and with that, he was soon racing out of the Wayne Industries parking garage and off to his next adventure. Had he stayed a little longer though, he would have heard Bruce's words in response to that argument.

"Ten bucks says your wrong, and knowing the Flash, he'll be quick to prove that to you, Captain."

* * *

 ** _AN: In all honesty, I was actually hoping to have this chapter go a different route by having Cap, Nightwing, and Batgirl take down Deathstroke, Taskmaster, and Penguin, but in the end, that ended up making this chapter a little too long for my taste, because I can't really have a really long chapter this early in the story. That little bit at the end though with Bruce, Lucius, and Steve, was something that I just had to put in there._**

 ** _Joker: So wait, he gets a bike, and I get robbed of the chance to bring down Bat-breath? No fair!_**

 ** _Deadpool: I know right?! I still can't believe he won't let me be in his Code: Avengers series beyond the author's notes stuff._**

 ** _AN: Quite in the psycho peanut gallery! Ahem, anyways, if anyone has a problem with me revealing Batgirl's secret identity to Steve without revealing Batman's, I just want point out that she revealed her identity to Kara pretty easily as well, and I doubt that Supergirl actually knows who Batman is behind his mask until some point after she joins the League, and besides, I think it's pretty obvious that Steve has some suspicions about Bruce at the moment. Now next chapter is going to be a point that I think we've all been waiting long enough for, Cap's introduction to the fastest man alive!_**

 ** _Joker: Please, just show a little more me, and everyone will be happy. Ooh! Maybe even have me and Deadpool here tag-team to take down Flag-Man and Bats!_**

 ** _Deadpool: Hey that's a great idea! Just think of all the cool gags and big explosions we could pull off together!_**

 ** _AN: Oh my god, now I'm stuck with two of 'em. Please move Onto the Preview before this gets any worse than it already is. PLEASE!_**

 ** _Steve's world travels have now led him to Central City, home town of both the scarlet speedster and his team of friends at S.T.A.R. Labs who back him up. Though things seem a little strange to Steve at first, it quickly becomes more problematic than anything else when the Central City Rogues become allied with an old ghost from Captain America's past. Just what sort of plans can the Rogues form against Flash and Captain America and to threaten the city with Baron Zemo among their ranks? Find out what happens next time in…_** **Chapter 4: In a Flash** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers! Seriously, leave a review, because I feel like the lack of reviews is your way of telling me that I'm doing horribly with this story so far._**


	4. In a Flash

_**AN: Hey guys, we are now on the final chapter before bringing it into the main story of Justice League, and this is both Cap's final stop on his world tour, and the moment many of you have been waiting for. If you need a hint, just look at the chapter title. Now for this little number, I have to admit that I've kinda been really excited to write this chapter, and as a little heads up, if you've been keeping up with all the recent DC Universe media, namely television shows, then you might recognize quite a number of references to a couple of shows in particular in this chapter. And our first reference starts right now with a little intro done by our favorite super soldier, so Cap, take it away right after the disclaimer!**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **My name is Steve Rogers. In the middle to late stages of World War II, I volunteered for an experimental procedure that changed me from a twenty pound asthmatic into the world's first super soldier. In doing so, I became the champion of the allied forces, fighting for freedom and liberty all across every battlefield I was in, until the final stages of the war when I fell into icy, Northern waters while pursuing my greatest enemy. Now, after seventy years, I have returned to the world, only to find that it is far different than what I remembered it being, between superheroes that are both human and alien in all senses of the words, and so much more. Now, I must find where I fit in the world once again, and rediscover what I can do to make a difference in the world, and the only way I can do that, is by being the man I've grown into being. I am...Captain America.**

* * *

 **Chapter 4: In a Flash**

Steve was immensely enjoying having his old motorcycle back, but not as much as he was enjoying the improvements that Lucius Fox had made to the bike. Apparently, the motorcycle now had a special fuel tank that allowed him to travel greater distances before needing to refuel, and it was able to handle much more easily than before. The former of these two facts was proven true simply due to how he only needed to stop for gas once before he finally reached Central City, the hometown of the seventh member of the Justice League, whom Steve still had yet to meet. A fact that he was planning on changing with this visit, but such a plan was easier said than done since no one really knew where to find the man known as simply the Flash without going to a place where a disaster or a crime-in-progress was taking place. Despite the obvious drawback to meeting Flash, Steve was never one to give up on something so easily, so he did one of the only things he could think of to find the final Leaguer, and settled on simply cruising around Central City until he either spotted the hero, or something that would help lead him to the Flash.

He found the latter very quickly when an explosion suddenly rang out from somewhere close by, and after racing off in the direction that the sound had come from, Steve immediately found himself pulling up to an old apartment building with a number of squad cars around it. Knowing that someone would probably need his help, Steve immediately parked his bike, moved his shield from his back to his arm, and leapt into action, figuratively and literally speaking, because he had to climb up a number of large crates and fire escapes before finally leaping through the closest window with a crash. With little time to think, Captain America rolled across the floor until he was standing over a detective who had been knocked off his feet and raised his shield over the man just in time to block the storm of bullets that came in their direction.

"Where'd you come from," the man asked, drawing Cap's attention to the detective. Looking over his person, Steve could tell that the man was probably middle-aged at minimum, and saw that he wore a black detective's coat over a dark grey dress shirt and navy blue pants, with his badge strapped to his buckle.

"Doesn't matter soldier," Steve told him over the rainstorm of bullets that were still peppering his shield. "Just know I'm here to help."

The man just nodded in thanks and watched as Steve prepared to make a move on their attackers, but they both paused when they heard what sounded like thunder and a sudden whoosh of wind. A minute later, the bullets seemed to stop, and Steve peered over his shield to see a man in a red suit that covered him from head to toe, save for the lower half of his face, with a lightning bolt inside of a white circle on his chest, and another pair of lightning bolts on either side of his mask, with a wide grin on his face. The man in red continued to smile as he said, "Sorry I'm late, but I ran across a couple of muggings on the way in and had to stop 'em."

Steve just stared at the man in red until he noticed that most of the crooks that were shooting at him and the detective were all lying on the ground with their guns either missing or taken apart, save for one man who was starting to get back up and was reaching for his pistol. Steve immediately jumped up and crossed the room as quickly as possible before knocking the man out with his shield, only to realize a little too late that another pair of guys were getting back up and pulling out guns as well. Captain America was just moving to raise his shield in defense again, when the man in red suddenly vanished in a streak of lightning and knocked out the last two guys before Steve could even blink.

Looking from the two crooks to the man in red, Steve did not need anything else to confirm that this was the Flash, but he was still stunned enough to find that he could only say one thing to the speedster. "You're fast."

"Well what'd you expect from the fastest man alive," Flash asked in reply before running over to stand in front of him. "Hey whenever we're done here, meet me over at S.T.A.R. Labs so we can have a real meet and greet," Flash quietly told Steve, and he then vanished into another streak of red and yellow lightning before the World War II veteran could reply.

Steve just stared in silent awe for a minute, suddenly feeling like he owed someone money from a bet for some weird reason, but when the cops started moving in to put the criminals in handcuffs, Steve quickly spotted the detective he spoke to earlier and asked, "How do I get to S.T.A.R. Labs from here?"

The detective smiled at Cap for a minute and said, "Let me finish up here, and I'll show you the way. Oh, before I forget, Detective Joe West."

"Captain Steve Rogers," Steve replied as he accepted the handshake that Joe offered.

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Joe chuckled. "It's an honor to meet you, Captain America, and welcome to Central City."

* * *

It took a while for Joe to finish up what he needed to do, between escorting the recently arrested criminals away from the crime scene and writing out his report on the incident that had taken place, but once all of that was taken care of, the man was more than happy to lead Captain America to the S.T.A.R. Labs facility of Central City. Steve had heard quite a lot about the scientific research company from both the Kryptonian cousins and from what he had read in newspapers and books, but none of that did anything to prepare him for the sight of the actual facility itself. From the outside, it seemed like a massive, circular structure that was practically settled on its own little island in a way, with three large tower-like structures jutting up into the sky, while on the inside, it seemed to be filled with all kinds of different technologies and gadgets that were considered as nothing more than science fiction back in Steve's day, but clearly that was no longer the case. After walking through the long hallways for a few more minutes, Steve finally decided to remove the mask-like helmet he had been wearing for some time now, feeling it had started to get a little sweaty after all that time, and attached the helmet to his belt so that he would not have to carry it around so much, just in time for Joe to lead him into a large, circular lab where a young man and woman seemed to be waiting for them.

The man had lightly tanned skin, long black hair, and was dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and a light brown jacket, while the woman had Caucasian skin, long brown hair that went a just a short ways past her shoulders, and was dressed in relatively nice, business attire consisting of a skirt that stopped close to her knees and a professional looking shirt. When the two noticed Joe and Steve enter the room, they both gained looks of awe at the sight of the blonde man, though the woman's was a bit more subdued than the man's was, as the latter looked like he was about to explode from excitement. Before Joe could say anything, the man was already across the room and grasping Steve's hand in a strong handshake.

"It is an honor to meet you, sir. Captain America, sir," the man excitedly stated with a slight stutter. "Cisco Ramon, mechanical specialist here at S.T.A.R. Labs, and I'm also the guy who designed the Flash suit."

"A pleasure to meet you, Mister Ramon," Steve said.

"Oh, Cisco's fine. If you want. I mean, you can call me Mister Ramon if you want, that's up to you, but I'm just putting it out there…and I'm pulling a Felicity," Cisco stated.

The woman seemed to smile a little in good humor at her coworker as she walked up to introduce herself as well. "Doctor Caitlin Snow, Captain," the woman stated as she shook hands with Steve as well. "Welcome to the Central City S.T.A.R. Labs facility."

"Thank you Doctor Snow," Steve nodded. "Now, I was told that I could meet a certain speedster here as well, and yet, he seems to be out."

"He's probably stopping a few other small crimes in progress, or just stopped to get a quick snack," Caitlin shrugged in reply. "Flash's body has a very fast metabolism, so he has to eat a lot more than the average person."

Just as she had finished saying that, a sudden whoosh greeted everyone's ears, and a number of papers ended up being thrown into the air due to the sudden gust of wind that came with Flash super-speeding into the room. "And yet, it also has the advantage of making sure I don't gain any weight due to overeating, because to me, a normal meal is like overeating for everyone else," Flash joked in response to Caitlin's earlier comment, and just increasing the size of his smile when he heard Cisco muttering about a lack of paperweights.

"Well, it's nice to finally meet you face-to-face, Flash," Steve said as he accepted a handshake from the scarlet speedster.

"Same here," Flash replied. "I've just been dying to meet you since GL told me that he and the others found you in the ice a few weeks ago. So be honest, how do you like the Twenty-First Century so far?"

"It's…full of surprises," Steve hesitantly replied, having no other way to really phrase it. "But if you don't mind my asking, how did you end up being so fast?"

"Long story short, I got struck by lightning, and after spending a few months in a coma, I woke up and found that I could move my body so fast that I could have run all around the room before you could even blink," Flash said in reply, doing a quick run around the room at super-speed just to prove the point.

"Huh…first time I've ever heard of lightning not killing someone or fatally injuring them," Steve lightly muttered to himself, but he was soon brought back to his current surroundings when he noticed Cisco was looking him over in fascination, or more specifically, the mechanical genius was looking over his suit.

"So amazing," Cisco muttered. "A beauty of Stark-designed anything from the Forties. I already have so many ideas for improvements. And the actual, indestructible shield! Now that is bad ass! Can I…"

Steve had to smile a little at Cisco's excitement, and so he easily slipped the shield of his back and held it out to the smaller man as he said, "Just be careful with it, and don't try to throw it."

Cisco looked like a kid in a candy store when he heard that, and he soon found himself running his hand along the smooth, metal surface of the shield as he held it on his arm, examining it. "It is definitely lighter than I thought it would be," Cisco whispered.

"Uh, Captain, would you mind if I ask you something that might be a little too personal," Caitlin then suddenly asked as she and Flash led Steve further into the lab.

"That depends on what it is," Steve replied.

"I was wondering if I could take a sample of your blood," Caitlin stated. When Steve raised an eyebrow in confusion, she quickly elaborated. "I've read all of the surviving notes on Doctor Erskine's serum, and I believe that, with an in-depth study, it could be used for a lot of good beyond just making stronger, faster soldiers. The medical applications alone would be of great benefit."

Steve could understand where Caitlin was coming from. He would not deny that Erskine's serum certainly would be able to do a great deal of good for medical science considering how it had changed him from a twenty pound asthmatic into the man he was today, and Caitlin seemed to be truly honest in what she intended to use the research for, so he really saw no reason to refuse, and allowed Caitlin to take a quick sample of his blood for study in the field. Once that had been done, Steve looked back to Flash and asked the big question he had been wondering since the speedster asked for them to meet there. "Why exactly do you seem to use this place as a base of operations?"

"Well Cisco and Caitlin are part of the reason why I was able to live through my coma for all those months, and after I discovered my powers, S.T.A.R. was the best equipped facility to help me understand them," Flash explained. "Just about everything that's done here is to help me discover what my limits are, how I can push past them, and to make sure that I don't get hurt when I'm out there being…well, me. Plus, I'm also a bit of scientist myself, so being able to be involved here at S.T.A.R. Labs at all is a big deal for me."

Steve nodded in understanding of this, and he was really glad to hear that Flash was able to do something he enjoyed with people he trusted and considered friends, but before he could ask anything else, a young woman with long, dark hair in a blue dress shirt and dark colored dress pants came rushing in with a distressed look on her face. "Barry, there's trouble uptown that needs your attention now, and…I did not know we were having company here today," the woman started saying, only to trail off and gain a more subdued and sheepish tone when she noticed Steve.

Flash secretly rolled his eyes a bit as he muttered, "Thank you, Iris for revealing my secret identity to a nearly random person. At least you didn't reveal it to a supervillain like Felicity did that one time." Flash then turned to Steve and pulled his mask off to reveal a kind faced man with light brown hair and light colored eyes before he held out his hand again and said, "Captain America, my name is Barry Allen, and I am the fastest man alive: the Flash."

Steve just stared at Barry in shock for a brief minute before he finally smiled and accepted the handshake as he said, "Good to meet you Barry. Don't worry; I'll keep your secret, but on one condition. Just call me Steve." Barry immediately smiled brightly in return for Steve's words, and nodded in acceptance of the condition that the super soldier had set out before allowing Steve to ask one other thing. "Now, who is this lovely young woman that just raced in here?"

"This is my daughter, Iris," Joe replied for Barry proudly. "Iris, this is Steve Rogers, aka Captain America."

Iris just smiled and nodded to Steve in a quick greeting as she stated, "It's an honor to meet you, Captain, and if this weren't such a bad time, I'd be asking for an interview, but right now, there's a much bigger problem to deal with."

Before Barry or Steve could ask what Iris was referring to, one of the computers in the center of the room suddenly beeped in alarm, followed by Cisco asking, "Would that bigger problem involve the Rouges going crazy in the middle of rush-hour uptown, because I think we just picked up on that."

Turning to the larger display monitor that was hanging on one of the far walls, everyone was able to quickly spot the supervillains known as Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, and Captain Boomerang tearing through the city with their various abilities and skills, creating nothing short of pure chaos in the streets, which only served to draw a very determined and serious look on both Barry and Steve's faces. Barry then pulled his mask back on and prepared to head out when he noticed that Steve was also moving to retrieve his shield from where Cisco had left it. "Uh what're you doing," Barry asked.

"I think that should be obvious, soldier. I'm going with you to stop those men," Steve replied, and almost instantly after he had said that, he found Barry blocking his path.

"Relax Cap," Barry stated. "I can handle the Rouges no problem. Besides, you've already helped out more than you should've had to as it is, and you've had to drive all the way here from Gotham. Trust me, I've dealt with the Rouges before, so you just take some time off while I deal with this. You've more than earned it after all you've been through in life." Barry then wrapped his arms around Iris and planted a quick kiss on her lips before raced out after telling everyone in the room, "Back in a flash."

Steve just stared at where Barry had just been, until he finally said, "Two questions: first, does he always say things like that?"

"Kind of. It's his way of being funny," Caitlin replied with a shrug.

"And it kind of is," Cisco stated as though he had argued this point before.

"Okay then," Steve nodded before turning to the West family. "And Iris, are you and Barry in a relationship?"

"Yes we are," Iris replied happily.

"Took them long enough to start it too," Joe added with a small grin.

Steve nodded once more and then slipped his helmet onto his face once again before heading towards the exit once both the helmet and his shield were secured in their respective places. "Wait, where are you going," Cisco asked.

"I never was one to let a friend face something alone," Steve said.

"But Barry just said that you should stay here," Joe pointed out. "Trust me, I've seen him take on all of those guys and win before. He'll be fine."

"I don't doubt that, but something about this just doesn't feel right," Steve explained with a slight tone of dread. "So I get the feeling I should be down there, otherwise Barry won't be coming out of this in one piece."

No one said anything in reply to this comment, and since they were well aware that they would not be able to stop him if they wanted to, they all just watched Captain America go before turning back to the computers around the main hub of the lab so that they could watch over Central City's favorite superhero and their friend, hoping that if Steve was right, he would get there before it was too late.

* * *

People often think that Flash was so confident in his abilities that he would always just run head first into something without thinking about it, but in reality, that was not true; at least, not always. Being able to move so fast allowed Barry to analyze the entire situation and figure out the best way to handle something before you could even blink, and right now, the flaw that he could see in the Rouges' little attack was that they all seemed to be depending on Captain Cold to lead them. It made a lot of sense, seeing as Cold was always one to plan out every detail of his crimes as he could, so the obvious solution was that if Barry took Cold out of the equation, then the remaining villains would be directionless and disoriented long enough for him to deal a finishing take down to each one of them.

With his plan of action set, Barry quickly ran in and knocked Captain Cold out with a high speed punch, and then disassembled the icy criminal's Cold Gun in a matter of seconds afterwards, but shockingly, his arrival and subsequent take-down of Captain Cold did not seem to disorient any of the super criminals, as they quickly turned their attention onto him only seconds later. This was actually a bit of a surprise to Barry, as he had honestly expected Heat Wave to start lashing out with a massive burst of flames at the very least, but they were all easily coordinating their attacks, keeping him from ever staying in one place for more than a few seconds, which did not really matter to Flash anyways, since it was easy for him to get to the other side of Central City and back again in a matter of minutes, so he made sure to keep running and evading the numerous attacks being thrown at him for as long as possible until he found another chance to take down the various villains. At least, that was his plan until something suddenly hit him in the leg, and actually hurt him a lot more than it should have, knocking him out of his super speed and completely tripping him up.

"And here I thought that you would be a very minor challenge at the least, but you are proving to be even more of simple-minded fool than I was led to believe," a superior-sounding voice commented, and Flash quickly looked behind him to see a man dress in a purple suit with a yellow belt, gloves, and boots, a pair of swords on one side of his belt and a strange-looking, smoking pistol in his hand, indicating that he was the one who had shot Flash.

Barry did not know who this guy was, but he was not going to let this ridiculously dressed lowlife come into his city and cause trouble, so he immediately jumped back to his feet and started to run again, only to find that he was not moving as fast as he should have been, and his surprise left him open long enough for Captain Boomerang to knock him off his feet again with an explosive boomerang. "Hey, what gives," Flash shouted as he shot a glare at the newcomer. "What'd you shoot me with, Sock-Face?"

"A specially designed sedative, which would put a normal person into a coma, but in your case, it will simply slow you down just enough for me to take your life and earn the money that your 'Rogues', as you call them, had promised me for killing you," the man said, and he aimed his pistol at Flash once again, only to draw his attention away from the speedster when he heard the roar of a motorcycle engine approaching.

Flash also looked in the direction of the roaring engine and saw Captain America racing onto the scene with his shield at the ready, which he immediately tossed at Captain Boomerang, knocking out the Australian-accented criminal with a single hit. Once the shield had returned to him, Cap spun his bike around with a hard screech and then raced forward once again, dodging Weather Wizard and Heat Wave's attacks as he did, until he finally set the bike on auto-drive and jumped off, bringing his shield down on the purple clad villain when he descended back to the ground in front of Flash. The blow from Cap's shield was more than enough to disorient the newcomer to the point where Captain America only needed to knock the offending pistol out of his hand with a single wave of his hand before kicking the criminal away, and once said villain was a good distance from them, Cap immediately held out a hand to help Flash up, which the scarlet speedster happily accepted.

"So, is this what you call 'handling them'," Steve joked after helping Barry to his feet, at which point the Flash vibrated himself at a fast enough speed that the sedative that he had been injected with was forced out of his system completely.

"Well how was I supposed to know that they had a new recruit," Flash defended once he was completely free of the sedative. "These guys never go for help that comes from out of town."

The two's small bantering was cut off when the unidentified villain stood up again and snarled, "Captain America. So the stories of your return are true, and it seems you haven't changed a bit."

It was at this point that Cap finally got a really good look at the purple-clad villain, and after hearing that voice, Steve immediately realized who this person was, and his eyes narrowed in anger almost as fast as Flash could run. "Zemo," Captain America snarled before readying his shield again.

"Wait, you know that guy," Flash asked before moving to stand back-to-back with Cap when he noticed Heat Wave and Weather Wizard moving in on them.

"Unfortunately," Steve replied, and he then turned his full attention to his old enemy. "How're you still alive, Zemo? You should've died years ago."

"And yet I did not, and it is thanks in some small part to you," Zemo remarked. "I'm sure you remember the day when you and your sidekick broke into my lab and exposed me to my Virus X, correct? Well because of that, I had to undergo various special treatments that enhanced my healing abilities just enough to keep me alive and the virus from killing me. I have evolved, Captain, while you have remained the same as you ever were. This is my world now, and you have no place in it."

"I may not know a lot about the future, or as much as I'd like to know about the present, but I do know one thing about the past: you lost the war, and you'll always lose whether I'm here or not, Zemo," Captain America replied in confidence.

"Yes, I'm sure that Bucky would agree with that sentiment if he were still with us today," Zemo retorted, and that proved to be just the thing he needed to say to get Steve to snap, as a minute later, Zemo was raising his sword for battle against a very enraged Captain America.

Flash was not sure why Cap had been set off in this way after what Zemo had said, but he knew that he still had other matters to deal with at the moment, so he quickly turned his attention back to Heat Wave and Weather Wizard, just as they were preparing their next strikes. Vanishing into a blur of speed once again, Flash was quick to dodge the fire and ice blasts that the two villains directed at him, and quickly ran around as the two continued this method of attack until he ran right in between the two, forcing them to direct their attacks in each other's direction without realizing it until the last second. As a result, Heat Wave ended up being blasted across the street with his Heat Gun frozen over by Weather Wizard's ice, while Weather Wizard's wand was knocked out of his hand by the intense heat that had suddenly been thrown at him, and leaving him unprepared for when Flash suddenly knocked him out with a hard hit to the back of his head.

"Never thought that someone could be stopped cold by a sudden blast of heat," Flash quipped once Weather Wizard was down, and he then turned to try and assist Cap, but when he did look upon the fight, he saw that even with his speed, he would probably just get in the way.

Captain America and Zemo were going at each other with a speed and skill that one could only come close to achieving through extreme training until reaching the ultimate peak of physical human condition, and neither one of them were letting up for even a second. Whenever Zemo slashed at Cap with his sword, Captain America would parry the blow with his shield and counter with a hard punch across Zemo's face, and when Cap tried to kick his old enemy, Zemo caught the offending leg and threw the captain over his shoulder. Such a fight was something that Flash thought he would only see the likes of from watching Batman fight someone that was his equal in hand-to-hand combat, but there was one thing in particular that stood out to the speedster: Captain America's attacks were extremely aggressive, indicating that he was fighting with a great deal of rage in his mind, which meant that what Zemo had said earlier had really angered Steve to the point that it seemed like Cap was fighting to try and kill Zemo. Flash knew what it was like to fight with anger like that, having been forced to do so by an old enemy of his and also having seen it in the way an old friend of his from Star City would sometimes fight back in the day, but to see Captain America fighting like this was extremely unexpected for him.

Flash quickly snapped out of his shock when he saw that Cap had finally gained the advantage and pinned Zemo down, and he was quick to believe that the fight was finally over, but that immediately changed when he saw Steve continue beating down on Zemo with everything he had, even though Zemo was down for the count. Flash did not need to think before he raced over and grabbed Steve's arm before he could deliver another blow against the defenseless villain and shouted, "Whoa, hey easy, Cap! He's down! It's over!"

Panting a little, Steve looked between Flash and Zemo until he had managed to finally calm down enough to realize what he had been doing, and once he had, he relaxed the arm that Flash had been holding back and slowly stood up, muttering, "Sorry. Zemo and I just have a very long and brutal history."

"Clearly," Flash said. "But why don't you tell me about it after we get these guys locked up and then get back to S.T.A.R. Labs?"

Steve nodded in agreement with Flash and then climbed onto his bike so that he could start the journey back to S.T.A.R. alongside the speedster, just as the police were arriving to slap cuffs on each of the criminals that had just been taken down by the two heroes.

* * *

After returning to S.T.A.R. Labs, everyone was more than happy to give Steve a few minutes to gather his thoughts and make sure he had calmed down enough before telling his story, and during that time, Cisco had disappeared into one of the other labs for some reason that was unknown to everyone but him. When they saw that Steve seemed to be ready to tell his tale, they put all thoughts about that aside for the moment and put their full attention on the super soldier so they could hear the story behind his grudge with Zemo. Once he saw that everyone's attention was focused on him, Steve took one last calming breath, and began. "Baron Zemo was one of the Red Skull's top lieutenants back in World War II," Steve said. "He was in charge of HYDRA's biological warfare experiments during the war, and one of those projects was something known as Virus X. When my partner, Bucky Barnes and I heard about it, and the fact that Zemo was planning to use it both to take over HYDRA and end the war by releasing the deadly virus on the Allies, we undertook a mission to infiltrate the facility and destroy both Virus X and all research on it that we could find. We came into conflict with Zemo, but at some point during the fight, Zemo was exposed to his own virus. Out of a desperate need for revenge, Zemo tried to kill me when I had let my guard down, but he failed because Bucky had noticed and threw himself in the way. The next thing I knew, Bucky had blown out of the facility by the bomb that Zemo had thrown at me, and fell into the ravine bellow us. We never found his body, but there's no doubt that my friend was…I've always blamed Zemo for Bucky's death ever since then."

Everyone was gobsmacked after hearing that. They all knew that Captain America was not this perfect hero who could always do good and never failed in anything, but they never expected that something like this would have happened to him. It really showed that despite all his great deeds and various achievements, he was still, very much as human as the rest of them were. After another few minutes of silence, Barry finally walked over to place a comforting hand on Steve's shoulder and said, "I can understand why you'd feel that way, but you can't let that get in the way of letting you be who you are. You're a good man, Steve, and it would be a really dark day when you decided to turn to things like revenge and such."

Looking on at the faces of Barry's friends and allies, Steve could see that was sentiment that they all shared, and seeing that these people he had only just met believed in him so much only served to further prove that Captain America did still matter to a lot of people in this new modern world, and that there were still people who needed someone like him to show them that they could make a difference by standing up for what's right even against all odds. Seeing that now, he could not help but smile as he realized that he had finally found an answer to the question that had set him out on this journey across the world. "Thank you Barry," Steve nodded to the speedster. "I guess I needed to hear that, and you know something, you're a really good person too. I can see why you're a member of the Justice League."

"Hey any time, Steve," Flash shrugged in reply. "And speaking of which, you should know Supes and the others wanted me to tell you something really important. You've got a place with us, Steve, with the Justice League, and we'd be honored if you would join us."

Steve could not stop the smile that reached his face as he accepted Flash's offered handshake and said, "The honor would be all mine."

As he stood there shaking hands with the Flash, Steve could not help but match the speedster's grin with one of his own, because he knew that at long last, after traveling to so many incredible places and encountering so many amazing people, that he would always be able to make a difference somehow, and that even in this strange new world, Captain America would still be able to keep on fighting the good fight, even if it was by simply being a good man. With that said and done, Flash found himself asking, "So do you want to head on up to the Watchtower so we can give you an official welcome to the League, or do you have something else to do first?"

"Actually, there is one last thing I'd like to take care of before going back up to the Watchtower," Steve replied. "In all honesty, I think that it's something that's actually long overdue."

"Well hey, before you go, I've got something that I think you might like," Cisco's voice suddenly rang out, and everyone turned to see the mechanical genius pushing a large table like the one that Barry stored his suit on when he was in the lab and not using it, only with a new suit that was clearly meant for Steve. This new suit had the same color scheme as Steve's current one, except that the blue parts of the outfit were a darker shade of blue than that of his old World War II suit, and Steve could also see that the arms and gloves of the suit seemed to be lined with some kind of special technology. The mask of the suit still seemed like a helmet, but unlike Steve's current helmet, this one was attached to the rest of the suit like Flash's mask was, making it so that Steve would not have to carry it on his belt or leave it on a nearby table where it would be out of his reach when he needed it.

Looking on at this new suit, Steve could only gaze in awe while Cisco gave him the run down on some of the new features that this suit had in comparison to his old one. "This bad boy is designed to be able to withstand a bullet or even a basic laser blast, since so many people tend to use them nowadays, and is made with a special kind of nanoweave that makes it able to repair itself within minutes so that you never have to worry about repairing it the old fashioned way. The gloves and arms are lined with a special electro magnet that's designed to work with your shield so that you can call it back to you when it's out of reach with just a thought. And I also left the color scheme and pattern on the suit as is, since it just works for you so well, and I'm sure you would want it that way."

After looking over this new masterpiece, Steve looked to Cisco with a wide grin and said thank you before taking the suit somewhere else to change into it. When he finally finished doing so, he came back later to show them everyone that he was now definitely ready to give the world a much more modern taste of what Captain America could do, as the suit seemed to be a perfect fit for him. Steve then stayed for a few more minutes so that Iris could get an interview with him for the Central City News, and so that he could test out the electromagnets in the suit to make sure that they worked, and with that, he was on his way to his last destination before returning to the Watchtower for the next chapter in his life of adventure and heroics.

* * *

Arriving in the modern day New York City allowed Steve to really get a much better idea of just how much the world had changed in his absence, but despite the fact that he was very tempted to join the many tourists in taking in the sites, he kept his mind focused on the tall building with a fancy letter "S" on the side of it until he had finally entered its parking garage and walked inside. After a brief conversation with the receptionist, Steve managed to get permission to go up to the office of the building's owner, and soon found himself face to face with none other than the now-grown-up son of his old friend sitting behind a desk and looking over a number of different reports on a few holographic screens. All thoughts on those business reports seemed to be forgotten the minute that Steve walked in though, as the man brightened up a bit at seeing Steve and immediately shut off the monitors to wave him over, only to meet him halfway across the room so that they could exchange a friendly handshake.

"You know, after hearing that you were back, I had a hunch you would show up here sooner or later, and I'm glad you did," the man said as Steve took in his appearance. He was the spitting image of his father, but with a slightly more ruffled hairstyle and a glowing circle in his chest that Steve could only assume was the Arc Reactor he had heard so much about. "My father used to never shut up about you when I was growing up and you were a huge inspiration for me because of that."

"Glad to hear it," Steve nodded. "It's nice to finally meet you, Mister Stark."

"The honor is all mine, Captain, but please, call me Tony," the head of Stark International insisted. "Now then, what can I do to help you?"

* * *

 ** _AN: Okay, I'm sure that last chapter you all caught the fact that I made a few references to the Batman Arkham series, so it should be no surprise that with this chapter, we're bringing in references to The Flash and Arrow TV series. The reason why I am including such things is because I like being able to mix and match some of the best stuff from a certain franchise to make one specific part of it better, at least in my opinion._**

 ** _Speaking of changes, yes, I know that in Justice League, Flash was Wally West, and I have nothing against that version of Flash, but to be perfectly honest, these days, when I hear the name Wally West, the first name I normally think of is Kid Flash, and I honestly think that Barry Allen is actually the cooler Flash, although that may be mostly because of how The Flash stars Barry, but really, when it comes to the various different iterations of the Flash, I find Barry Allen to be the one that people tend to really relate to and feel for, given all that he's dealt with. So yeah, of course I went with the guys from that series. Also, only certain elements of both Arrow and The Flash will be incorporated into this story while others will remain as they previously were, so don't sweat that too much._**

 ** _Next up is Cap's new suit. In case it wasn't obvious, it is the suit you see him wearing in the cover art for this story, or to put it another way, you could just as easily say that it is the suit he wore in The Avengers, and I had Cisco make it because for one, we always see guys like Stark or SHIELD making Cap's suits, so I wanted to go with someone else, and yeah, I included the electromagnets that were in the suit from Age of Ultron, mostly because I think that those are a major help for Cap when he's fighting, and I wanted to make sure he had as much of an edge as he could get when facing some of the stuff that the Justice League deals with._**

 ** _Finally, that little bit at the end there between Cap and Tony Stark. I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now that yes, Tony's Iron Man, that should be obvious by the fact that he has the Arc Reactor in him, but no, his identity as Iron Man is not public, so no one knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man at this point in time. My reasons for including Stark in this story so soon will be made clear next chapter. And speaking of newly introduced MARVEL characters, yeah, I added Zemo and made it so that he was the one who "killed" Bucky, but we all know that Bucky is not dead, so don't worry, Winter Soldier will be making an appearance here at some point in the future, but it may be a while before he does. I made it this way because I wanted Cap to have an enemy that he had some extremely personal history with, kind of like Batman and the Joker, or Superman and Lex Luthor, or Green Lantern and Sinestro...you get the idea._**

 ** _Now I think that covers everything for the moment, so Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _Steve's first mission with the Justice League immediately finds him joining the team in bringing down Lex Luthor, only for to find their victory bittersweet when they find out Luthor has Kryptonite-induced cancer that is killing him afterwards. Blaming the heroes for what has happened to him and desperate to get back at them, Luthor brings in the best of the worst for the sole purpose of destroying the Justice League. Can the League stand up to this collection of villains that could likely match them at every turn, or will Luthor's mad ambitions end them all? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 5: Injustice For All** ** _._**

 ** _Excited yet? I certainly hope so, but until then..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	5. Injustice For All

_**AN: And Ladies and gentlemen, with this we are pulling out of the original stuff for a bit and getting into the main adventures of the Justice League series, and what better place to start than the story of the beginning of Luthor's downfall? No really, go ahead and try and tell me there's a better place to start. In all honesty, I'm really hoping this turned out okay, because when it comes to face-offs between a team of heroes and a team of villains, I'm not usually all that confident with how they turn out. Just take the chapters in Code Avengers when the Avengers faced off with the Masters of Evil for example. I'm still a bit unsure about how some of those chapters turned out. But enough about that, let's get on with the story.**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Injustice For All**

Tony Stark was more than happy to help Steve set up all the final details of his new life in the present day, and the first step in doing so was by helping Steve find a place to live. This was easily accomplished, as Steve made it clear that he wanted to be set up somewhere in New York, specifically somewhere in Brooklyn, and Tony was able to find a very nice place with no problem at all. The apartment that Steve ended up in was no penthouse suite like what Stark would typically give someone, but it was not some small, dingy place that was barely holding itself together either. It was actually rather above average, just to the point that Steve felt that it was not too nice of a place to live in, and that it felt a lot like home to the super soldier, whether it was in the Forties or the present day. While the place itself was nice, the main reason that Steve wanted to live in that particular area was because he felt that he could do a lot of good in that area of New York, and in the rest of one of the world's biggest city as well. Sure there were a few heroes around New York City, but most of them were considered to be something of rumors or just did not operate in the city or out of a certain area of the city that often, so it gave Steve the idea that it could use a hero that was not hidden in rumors and shadows like those other guys were.

Of course, that did not mean that finding a place to live in New York was were Steve's problems came to an end, as there was still the matter of his financial income. He knew that the army would likely send him some form of payment for his time in the service, assuming that it had not already been used in some other way by whoever he was closest to in the Forties, but no matter how much money it may have been, it would not last forever. Once again, Stark came to the rescue on that problem, and agreed to give Steve a small security job at Stark International, but it would only be if Steve were to help him test some of the inventions he came up with and used some of those inventions when he was out there saving the day. Seeing that as a reasonable deal, Steve was happy to accept, and with that, Steve Rogers was now more than ready to take on the modern world both in a civilian life and as Captain America.

Almost a day after Steve had finished setting up his new life, Flash showed up to finally give him a Justice League communicator and tell him that he was going to be joining the League on a major operation, which would also qualify as Steve's first mission with the League. Steve was more than happy to accept both and after Flash had given him the rundown on what they would be doing, he found himself heading back to Metropolis, eager to take down the rich, bald mastermind who had released three of Superman's greatest enemies as a distraction the first time that the super soldier had been in Metropolis.

* * *

It was relatively late at night in Metropolis now, and nearly all the entirety of LexCorp was empty save for the most essential employees, security guards, and of course, the company owner and CEO himself. At least, that is how it would normally be at this hour, except tonight, there was one other guest at Lex Luthor's company, and right at that moment, as he struggled to stand, he could honestly say that he would much rather be anywhere else right now. The reason for this person's trouble standing, the glowing, radioactive green rock that Luthor was holding in his hand.

"So this is how it ends," Lex mused to the weakened Kryptonian that was currently at his mercy. "You know I've carried this around for years waiting for just the right moment, but now that it's here, I almost feel a little…let down. Almost." Lex then moved to stand directly over his long time foe and held the kryptonite before he asked, "Any last requests?"

"Luthor…" Superman struggled to say. "I have to know…those weapons you…how…"

"How did I get them through customs," Luthor finished for the Man of Steel. "A gift here, a bribe there. When money talks, people listen, like Staphos of the shipping company, or Schneider, the Interpol agent who looked the other way."

"Sounds like you're going to have company in prison," Superman commented, suddenly sounding much stronger than he should have. Hearing this change in his enemy's voice caused Lex to spin around and gasp at the sight of Superman standing upright and strong without any sign of weakness at all. Acting on instinct, Lex raced forward and jabbed the kryptonite in front of him so that it was just inches away from Superman, but the Man of Steel did not falter in the slightest, and simply crossed his arms instead.

"It can't be," Lex protested. "The kryptonite…!"

"Won't protect you any longer," the Man of Steel said in a voice that was clearly not that of Superman's. An instant later, Lex was gasping in horror when "Superman" suddenly changed into J'onn J'onnz, the hero people were calling the Martian Manhunter. An instant later, a red and white blur flew into the room, knocking the kryptonite out of Lex's hand and into a waiting, green sphere that quickly retreated to where Batman, Green Lantern, and Captain America were standing in the doorway, right alongside Cap's shield.

"You're usually more careful, Lex," Batman commented as he pocketed the glowing green rock in his utility belt. "You slipped up."

"And you're going down hard," Lantern finished for the Dark Knight, his ring glowing with energy to show he was ready for a fight.

"Mission accomplished," Cap reported into his communicator before he joined the other three in surrounding Luthor. "So much for your image as a benevolent business man, Luthor," he then added as he addressed the exposed criminal. "This is the end of era."

"Oh Captain, your era ended decades ago," Luthor quipped in reply as he reached into his jacket. "But it does seem to be the end of your friends' era, maybe."

A minute later, Luthor had pulled out and triggered the remote he had been reaching for in his jacket pocket, and a large, silver ship suddenly appeared in his window before firing on the four Leaguers. Each of the four immediately dived out of the way of the initial laser blast, and were then quickly forced to either duck behind an energy shield John put up or Cap as he raised his own shield to block the blasts that followed as Luthor jumped into the cockpit of the jet. Once the bald man had done so, he fired a missile at the ceiling directly above the heroes' heads, blowing up his office around them as he began making his escape. If Luthor had stuck around to make sure the job had been finished, he would have found that Green Lantern had managed to erect a force field around himself and his teammates just before they were buried or blown up.

"Why do they always run," John lightly moaned as he dismissed his energy shield.

"If this was still the Forties, I would say it would be because they think they would live longer that way, or because they realized they would have a better of beating us if they made a tactical retreat," Steve replied in good humor, getting a small smile out of the former marine. The captain then stood up straight and prepared to race back down to the street where he had parked his motorcycle until Batman placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Superman's already on his tail," the Dark Knight stated. "He won't be getting away."

* * *

Batman was not wrong when he said that Lex Luthor would not escape, but what he did not know was that the reason why would not be because he was stopped by Superman. As he was making his getaway, Luthor suddenly had a seizure that caused him to lose consciousness, prompting Superman to rush Lex to a doctor the minute after he had made sure that the plane had not crashed into the streets bellow and pulled Luthor out of the cockpit. A few hours later, it was discovered that Lex had a been infected by a rare case of blood poisoning, due to how he had been carrying around a chunk of kryptonite for so many years. Lex had tried to argue that kryptonite only affected Superman and others like him, but the doctor immediately revealed that they had discovered that the radioactive rocks that were once Krypton also affected humans, but only through long-term exposure. To make matters worse for Luthor, there was no way to treat the kryptonite cancer he had been diagnosed with, and that same cancer was terminal.

Naturally, Luthor blamed Superman for everything, not that anyone was surprised, but when Superman finally returned to the Watchtower a few hours later after seeing Lex escorted off to prison and told the rest of the League, everyone was shocked to hear the news. They all found some way to deal with the matter on their own though, and for Steve, that was spending time in the mess hall having a small snack with John and Diana.

"It's amazing how even after seventy years, Big Belly Burger still tastes like Big Belly Burger," Steve commented as he took a large bite out of one of the burgers that Flash had brought up to the League's headquarters from said restaurant earlier that day.

"I suppose that's one word for it," John commented with a smile.

"Are you two not concerned about the news that we just received moments ago," Diana eventually asked when her two companions had not mentioned Luthor in the least.

"Sorry Princess, but when you hear that a bad guy like Luthor is going to croak soon, you don't really feel like you're going to lose any sleep over it," John shrugged. "Besides, no matter how much he blames Superman, the fact is he brought it on himself."

"John has a point, Diana," Steve nodded. He had made an effort to make sure he addressed his fellow Leaguers by their actual names as often as possible, especially when they were not doing something that involved saving the world, a fact that many of them really appreciated, including Diana if the small smile she developed was anything to go by. "Back in the Forties, we didn't really tend to care about who among the enemy had gone down so long as some of our own were still alive to get back home that is unless it was someone of great significance to our enemy's efforts in the war. I know that it's not the same thing here, but still, from what I've heard, I can't say that I'm terribly upset about hearing Luthor doesn't really have much longer to live."

"I suppose you have a point," Diana admitted with a shrug. "Still, it is saddening to hear about the loss of life."

"Well I can't really argue about that," John admitted. "Hearing that someone is going to die sometime soon does really tend to put things in perspective for you."

"Maybe, but it also raises another important question when it comes to men like Lex Luthor: Just what will he do now that he knows that he doesn't have long to live," Steve pointed out, immediately gaining concerned looks from his fellow heroes, because they did not want to think about the answer themselves.

* * *

Around the same time that the three Leaguers were taking time to socialize, Luthor was lying in his bed in Stryker's doing his best to muffle the noise of an opera performance that was coming from the cell next door to him, with very little success, much to his irritation. Eventually feeling like he had enough of the noise, he shot out of bed and banged on the wall as he shouted, "Hey keep it down! Can't a body die in peace around here?!"

When his efforts did nothing to quiet the irritating noise to even the slightest degree, Lex decided to try a different approach and pulled out a knife that he had managed to swipe from the prison cafeteria before going over to the television set in his cell. Using the knife, Lex pried open the cable box and set to work rewiring the device so that he would have a crude, two-way video conference with his cell neighbor. When he finished his work, the sounds of the opera performance had finally ceased, and he was quickly met with the image of a large, gorilla-like man that had white fur and an enlarged cranium, which served as all Luthor needed to recognize the ape-like criminal in question. "Humanite! How can you stand that caterwauling," Luthor demanded of his prison neighbor.

"Music is one of the meager pleasures I'm allowed in here, along with a few other necessities," Ultra Humanite easily replied as he gestured over to his rather impressively furnished cell that also seemed to have a chemistry set inside it as well. "You should try the culture channel. It might improve your disposition."

"There's nothing wrong with my disposition that a little freedom wouldn't cure," Luthor quickly refuted.

"That's not what I hear," Humanite smirked in reply, clearly showing that the knowledge of Luthor's current health condition was no big secret to anyone now.

Luthor only scowled at the ape-like super criminal for a minute before finally took a minute to recompose himself and said, "I need your help, and I can make it worth your while."

"What do I need with money," Humanite asked in retort.

"Everyone needs money. The only question is how much," Luthor immediately reasoned, and with that, he cut the transmission, knowing that he had Humanite hooked on the offer. The smirk that had adorned Humanite's face as he looked on at the television that had recently been showing Luthor's visage was all the proof anyone needed to confirm that.

* * *

Later that same night, Batman was racing through the streets of Metropolis in the Batmobile, having decided that he might as well help Superman for a little bit before returning to Gotham, when the car's police scanner picked up on some news that the made the Dark Knight scowl, irritably. _"All units, two prison inmates have escaped. The Ultra Humanite and Lex Luthor. They are considered armed and extremely dangerous."_

Hearing that news immediately made Batman put any plans on returning to Gotham on hold for the moment, and a second later, he was gunning the Batmobile's engines and redirecting his trusty car towards Ryker's. Before he could get close though, a sudden explosion suddenly went up in an area that he knew was close to a hotel, and a minute later, Batman was finding that he hated being right once again when he saw a hotel burning up in a powerful blaze as a pair of police officers were making sure that the people inside were getting out. Unfortunately, they were not able to get to everyone, as Batman quickly spotted a little girl calling out for her daddy from one of the top floor windows, and if the distant sounds of the fire truck sirens were any indication then there was a strong chance that the rescue squad would not make it in time.

"I need backup here, fast," Batman called out into his Justice League communicator, knowing that he would definitely need help in stopping this fire before it spread, and he then raced up to the side of the building before firing his grappling hook up to where he had seen the little girl a minute ago. Jumping through the window, the defender of Gotham was quickly hit by the intense heat of the fire as he raised his cape as a form of protection and looked around until he saw the girl huddled in a nearby corner.

When Batman had finally made his way over to her, the little girl immediately looked up and said, "I'm scared."

"Don't be. It's going to be alright," Batman softly told her as he scooped the child up into his arms. He then quickly ran back to the window he had come in through, only to stop short when a pile of debris suddenly fell from the ceiling and blocked the way. Batman managed to stay clear so that the collapsing ceiling did not fall on him or the small girl that he was carrying, and he immediately made a beeline for the only other exit from the room, kicking the door open as soon as he reached it. At that point, all he had to do was find another window or some other way out, and Batman would be able to swing out to safety, but that turned out to be much more difficult than he thought, as the fire was causing the building to fall further and further into rubble by the minute, right to the point where he soon found himself trapped part-way down the staircase that he had run down in order to get to a lower floor.

Batman's scowl only deepened when he saw that he and the girl were now trapped, but he did not have time to worry about that, as the floor he was standing on suddenly gave away when an explosion suddenly went off in another part of the building. He desperately tried to grab hold of a ledge to keep them from falling into the fires below, but unfortunately, it did not matter, as the wood quickly gave away a second later. Thankfully, the backup he had called for arrived just in time to pull him and the girl out of the fire, figuratively and literally, as Hawkgirl swooped in and scooped them both up in her arms before flying them all to safety outside the building, where the firefighters were already trying to extinguish the blaze.

After watching the girl run up to her father and happily give a big hug, Hawkgirl looked to her teammate and remarked, "I'm used to being thanked when I save someone."

"I'm not used to being saved," Batman immediately replied, getting a small smile in good humor from the winged hero in response just as Superman and Flash appeared on the scene. "Where are Luthor and the Humanite."

"We couldn't pick up their trail," Superman was sad to report.

"No biggie. It's just two guys. How much trouble can they give us," Flash reasoned, ever the optimist about a situation, but sadly, that optimism was not shared by any of the others, as they were reasonably certain that the two escapees were going to give a great deal of trouble.

* * *

The following night saw a feminine figure making her way up to the abandoned Metropolis Picture Store, but something that would easily take many by surprise was that this woman actually had gold fur with spots and a tail that gave her the appearance that was similar to a cheetah's. When the woman found the door was open, she immediately ducked inside, and after a brief look around, she took to the nature of the animal she seemed to share an appearance with and ran a little further inside on all fours. Pausing only for a minute, the woman took a quick sniff of her surroundings, until she picked up on a distinctly reptilian sent close to where she was, and she quickly pounced at the source with an animalistic roar.

When she laid eyes on her target, she found that she was tangling with a man in a copper colored suit with scales all across it and green gloves, with a snake head and a tail completing his ensemble. "Easy lady, easy," the snake man coaxed, hoping to get the cat-like woman to calm down a bit.

"Who're you," the woman immediately asked as she made sure her claws were well in sight.

"The name's Copperhead. I'm here about a job," the snake man replied.

"Cheetah, and so am I," the woman immediately stated as she relaxed her guard a little. "Somebody called me. Was it you?"

"No, but maybe we'll be working together. _Closely_ together," Copperhead said with a small hiss, and it did not take much for Cheetah to realize what the snake was implying, which only made her more disgusted than when he gave a little hiss, leading her to lash out and land a hard scratch in Copperhead's arm. "Bitch!"

In his anger, Copperhead immediately struck Cheetah with the tail of his suit, sending the feline felon back into a large figure that had been standing in the shadows until that point. When she turned to see who she had bumped into, Cheetah had to take a few steps back a little when she found herself face to face with the raggedly-dressed, white skin form of Solomon Grundy. "Nice kitty," Grundy giggled a little as he stroked Cheetah's fur a little.

Now, some average cats would probably enjoy getting petted, but Cheetah was just as far from being any ordinary cat as she was from being an ordinary human, and she just found it to be insulting, a fact that she made sure Grundy knew when she lashed her claws out into the zombie's arm and said, "Hands off."

"No one hurts Grundy," the zombie roared in anger, and a minute later, all three criminals were in a three-way brawl against each other. Cheetah's incredible agility allowed her to stay clear of the zombie's range, while Copperhead considered himself lucky enough just to stay ahead of the large objects that Grundy was throwing at them until he finally managed to jump on the zombie's back from behind. Before it could go any further though, the entire room suddenly went dark around them, to a point where even Cheetah had trouble seeing through the shadows with her cat-like vision. "Hey, who turned out the lights," Grundy exclaimed.

"I did, and I'll do worse if you don't stop behaving like unruly children," a new voice replied, and the three immediately turned to see a man in an all-black body suit, top hat, and sunglasses dispersing the darkness around them with the walking stick he held in his hand.

"Who do you think you are," Copperhead demanded as he and the other two stomped up to the newest arrival.

"The Shade, and my nightstick is more than powerful enough to handle you amateurs," the man replied with a small bow before he pointed said nightstick in Copperhead's face. Shade's boasting and smug look were both quickly ended when his cane was suddenly blasted out of his hand, drawing everyone to see an elder looking man in a green suit with a monocle on his right eye, yellow boots, a brown belt, and a yellow glove on his left hand, while his right hand seemed to be a dark red, mechanical prosthetic with claws instead of fingers. His left hand held a smoking pistol while a sword rested on his belt.

"Please spare me your boasting," the newest arrival said in a German accent. "Without your little cane, you are nothing but a child, and you are all rank amateurs compared to me."

"To be fair, there's not that many people who couldn't be amateurs compared to you, Baron Strucker," a female voice said from above the group, and they all immediately glanced up to see a woman in a black suit with a dark pink collar, and a dark pink mask, gloves, and boots that extended up nearly the entirety of her legs floating down to them as her shoulder-length black hair waved behind her. Looking around at the rest of the gathered individuals, the woman had to scoff a little as she remarked, "Common criminals and an ancient relic. Is this what I've been reduced to?"

"You dare," Strucker started to say, until a voice that everyone easily recognized interrupted him.

"Criminals, yes, but common, most certainly not," Lex Luthor replied as he and Humanite descended down to the gathered criminals in the old building's elevator. Looking to the two, one could see that Ultra Humanite had changed out of his prison garb and into his usual attire of a red, gladiator like attire, while Luthor had opted to go for a purple shirt and bluish-green pants and gloves, and a black belt, boots, and harness that held a pistol on his left side.

"Well the plot thins," Shade softly remarked as he retrieved his nightstick before joining the others in gathering around the recently exposed business man.

"Cheetah, Sapphire, Grundy, glad you could make it," Luthor stated once everyone had gathered before him. "Baron Strucker, it is an honor to meet you, and of course, you all know the Ultra Humanite."

"Charmed I'm sure," Humanite nodded in greeting.

"Cut the courtesies, Luthor. What do you want," Copperhead demanded.

"Each of you is the best in the world at what you do, and I have need of your unique services," Luthor explained.

"My talents don't come cheaply," Cheetah warned the bald man.

"You will all be paid most handsomely if you can do one simple job," Luthor assured the entire group.

"What kind of job," Shade asked, being intrigued, yet still cautious about accepting whatever Luthor was going to offer them.

At this point, Luthor could barely repress the smirk, as he was just itching with anticipation for someone to ask that question, and he as such, he simply replied, "Destroy Superman and the Justice League."

While some of the group were shocked to hear that they were being asked to do such an incredible task, their shock quickly wore off and became replaced by smirks of anticipation for a chance to finish off the team of heroes, but not all of the villains were willing to engage in such a task. "I do not have time to indulge in your personal squabbles and vendettas, Luthor, not when I am in the process of bringing about the revival of HYDRA," Strucker quickly waved off, and he then turned to leave, until Luthor caused him to pause once more with a simple question.

"Tell me, Baron, have you heard the news about the League's newest member," Luthor asked.

"Why should that be of any concern to me," Strucker asked in a dismissive tone, but Luthor knew that if the baron was staying to hear of this news then the former HYDRA general was at least intrigued.

"Because it is one of the same people who put an end to HYDRA many years ago," Luthor replied. "One Steven Rogers, but you all might know him better…as Captain America."

When everyone heard this, they were all gasping in shock and slight awe, save for Strucker, who was scowling at the news that his old foe was still alive after all this time, and this news was all that the baron needed to agree to assist Luthor in the others in destroying the Justice League, while also making a silent vow that Captain America would soon fall to the power of his Satan's Claw.

* * *

Another day found Batman up in the Watchtower listening into various police and news channels for any news regarding the two, recently escaped criminals, but it was rather hard for the Dark Knight to hear all that much with Flash telling Hawkgirl and Captain America about one of his various exploits in Central City, though they were all fairly certain that the Scarlet Speedster was exaggerating the details a bit.

"And I had those flames out before the firemen even stepped off their trucks," Flash finally concluded.

"That's fast," Hawkgirl remarked half-heartedly, having heard a number of stories from the speedster already in what she assumed was Flash's attempts to woo her with his "charms."

Flash merely blew on his knuckles before rubbing them against his chest and replying, "Fastest man alive."

"Which might explain why you can't get a date," the winged woman quipped in good humor, already knowing that Flash would not notice her remark for a minute.

"Yeah…Hey! What's that supposed to mean," Flash demanded when he finally caught on to the joke, which quickly prompted a laugh out of Steve in response.

"You walked right into that one, Flash, or maybe it would be easier to say that you ran right into it," the super soldier chuckled.

"Ha-ha-ha. Thanks for the support, Steve," Flash dryly replied to Steve's comment. Barry then gained a small, sly smile as he looked to his friend and asked, "Speaking of dates though, how was your dating life like back in the Forties, Cap?"

"What do you mean," Steve asked in honest confusion.

"Well was there ever a Mrs. America or anything like that," Barry elaborated, leading Hawkgirl to quickly become just as intrigued as the speedster.

Steve chuckled a little at Flash's question before he replied, "No, I never married back in the Forties, and to be honest, before I was given Erskine's serum, my dating luck was never that great. Not a lot of girls were lining up to date a guy they could step on if they were to go dancing."

"Well what about after you got the serum," Hawkgirl asked. "I'm sure that you got a lot of girls' attention then."

"I did, actually," Steve admitted. "But in all honesty, there were only two girls that really caught my attention. The first one was a woman named Margret Carter, but everyone knew her better as Peggy. She was one hell of a woman, not just in looks, but in spirit and determination as well. Practically the living embodiment of the idea that women were able to do more than just sit on the sidelines and bandage wounds in the Forties, especially whenever she was armed with almost any type of gun."

"And who was the other one," Flash asked, but before Steve could reply, they were all immediately silenced by Batman telling them to quiet down and then turning up the volume on the speakers on the news story that was currently coming through the Watchtower's computer.

 _"A dangerous hostage situation developing at the Federal Building,"_ reporter Snapper Carr stated into his microphone as the monitor showed him to be on the scene. _"So far the Ultra Humanite has refused to speak with negotiators. A freak of science, the Humanite is reportedly a genius who's also extremely dangerous…"_

"No biggie, right," Batman asked Flash as he cut off the newsfeed.

"Well you can't blame the guy for trying to be a little hopeful or optimistic," Steve said in his friend's defense before the four all quickly headed for the hangar where the Javelin was waiting for them.

* * *

The Metropolis PD were now out in full force around the Federal Building, with SWAT teams just waiting for even the smallest signal to move, but for the moment, they were all just tentatively holding their ground as the officer in charge tried to reason with their supervillain target. "Humanite, let the hostage go and I'll give you one of my men in return," the officer in charge said into a bullhorn. To some, it would seem like the cop was to afraid to give himself up for the hostage, but really, he was hoping that by sending in one of his men, it would allow them to have an edge by having someone that could hit from the criminal's blindside.

Sadly, the effort was not successful, as Humanite appeared in the doorway with the hostage in his grasp and shouted, "What do you take me for, a troglodyte? No deal."

Everyone was immediately beginning to draw a bead on Humanite with their guns when they saw the mad genius raise a laser in their direction, until a blast of green energy pushed Humanite's weapon out of his hand, courtesy of Green Lantern. With Humanite disarmed, Superman was then able to swoop in and attack Humanite head on, causing the gorilla-like villain to lose his grip on the hostage, leaving the woman lying on the steps next to where Batman landed from above. "Look for other hostages," the Dark Knight told Lantern as the space defender flew past him before bringing his full attention onto the hostage that had just been saved. "You're safe now."

"But you're not," the woman told Batman, and the Dark Knight was quickly put on the defensive when the hostage revealed herself to be Cheetah in disguise, right at the same moment that the feline villainess swiped at him with her claws.

Eventually, Batman was driven into the Federal Building, where he quickly spotted Green Lantern and Superman being cornered by Grundy, Star Sapphire, and Humanite, but before he could move to help either of the two, he soon found himself facing off against two opponents when Copperhead suddenly tried to jump him from behind. Thankfully, Batman did not need to worry about his teammates for long, as just when it seemed like Grundy was going to pound Superman all the way to China, Hawkgirl came crashing through a window to slam her mace right into Grundy, knocking the zombie right into one of the pillars in the room. Batman was then forced to bring his attention back to his own battle when Cheetah tried to pounce on him, but he ended up leaving his back open for Copperhead to strike at.

Thankfully, that problem was easily remedied when Flash intercepted the snake-villain with hard, high-speed punch, and the two then just stood where they were as Cheetah found her next attempt to attack them stopped short when she ended up caught in the hold of Wonder Woman's lasso. "Let me go," Cheetah grunted, angrily.

"Relax lady. This will all be over before you know it," Flash quipped as he raced away to help one of his other teammates, never noticing Shade stepping out of the shadows as he did.

"That's what you think," the shadow manipulator replied to Flash's earlier comment, and with a simple wave of his nightstick, Shade was easily able to trap Flash in a swarm of shadows, long enough to cause the speedster to run right into a wall. He then turned his attention to Hawkgirl, who was now battling against Star Sapphire, when the sound of another window crashing open drew his attention towards the red, white, and blue shield that was barreling right towards him. Shockingly, Shade managed to keep a bit of a hold on his cane when the shield hit, but he was soon forced to retreat into the shadows himself in order to escape a confrontation with the charging Captain America.

Before Steve could really look for the shadow manipulator, he was forced to raise his shield in defense so that he could block a serious of laser blasts that were fired at him. When the blasts finally ceased, Cap glanced around his shield to find himself faced with an old but still familiar face from his past. "Strucker," Captain America acknowledged. "Didn't think I'd see you again even if you were just a kid when I last saw you."

"You will soon find that is the last mistake you will ever make Herr Captain," Strucker retorted as he drew his sword and flexed the claws on his crimson, right hand. An instant later, the two old enemies were engaging in fierce combat like the rest of their teammates had, with no one really gaining any ground against the other for very long.

One particular example was when Diana had actually been forced to release Cheetah from her hold in after a stray shot from Star Sapphire caused some of the ceiling to nearly fall on her. Thankfully, the Amazonian was able to smash the debris apart with a hard punch, but she was soon put on the defensive when Sapphire began firing on her, directly. Thankfully, a timely intervention from a now-recovered Green Lantern helped stave off any further assaults on Diana, and he was soon facing off with the woman who was easily his equal in powers, a fact that was quickly proven true by the exchange that they were soon having.

"Didn't think I'd be dealing with the rogue Sapphire here," John commented as he fired energy blasts from his ring.

"I am no rogue," Sapphire retorted. "If anything, I'm the only true Star Sapphire left in our corps, seeing as your fellow Green Lanterns somehow tricked my former sisters into believing that they're old ways were wrong."

"You know her," Hawkgirl asked as she came to float alongside John.

"Not personally," Lantern replied. "My fellow Green Lanterns Kilowog and Hal Jordan first encountered the Star Sapphire corps a few years ago during a mission, and after a while, they somehow managed to form an alliance between the two corps. We try not to involve one another in each other's problems if we can help it, but that doesn't mean we don't know when to ask for help or advise the other about certain matters, like when one of our members suddenly abandons their cause."

Any further conversation was halted when Hawkgirl was forced to push John aside and deflect another blast from Sapphire with her mace, only for the blast to hit the balcony that Lex Luthor had been observing the fight from before finding himself in a fight against Batman. When Humanite saw Luthor falling to the ground along with debris from the balcony, he quickly abandoned his resumed battle against Superman to leap over and save Lex from falling to his death.

"I'd hate to see anything happen to you, Lex," Humanite informed the bald man as he lowered Luthor back to his feet.

"I'm sure," Lex remarked in heavy sarcasm, as he knew full well that Humanite was more concerned about whether or not he received his payment than Luthor's wellbeing in general.

Batman was about to jump down after the two, but he was quickly forced to let out a cry of pain when Copperhead suddenly bit into his shoulder from behind. The Dark Knight immediately stumbled a bit as a result, trying desperately to shake the snake-villain off of him, but he found his efforts unsuccessful until Captain America managed to catch sight of the problem and forced Strucker to fire his pistol at Copperhead when the former HYDRA agent tried to shoot him. With Copperhead now out cold, it was very clear to the villains that they were outmatched by the heroes.

"Let me get us out of here," Shade suggested to Luthor as he managed to stave off an attack from Green Lantern. "It's either that or prison again."

"Alright, just do it," Luthor snapped in angry agreement, and a minute later, the entire room and the area around the building were encompassed in a massive shadow cloud from Shade's nightstick, which only dispersed after Green Lantern used his ring to shed some light on the area. Sadly, by the time he had, the villains had all seemingly vanished.

Thankfully, Flash was able to bring some good news when he spotted an unconscious Copperhead had been left behind. "Look, we've still got one of 'em," the speedster informed everyone with pride.

Unfortunately, any optimistic feeling anyone had from Flash's find was quickly dwarfed when Captain America went up to check on Batman, only to find the Dark Knight having trouble breathing as sweat poured down his face, forcing the super soldier to say, "But they got one of us."

* * *

Batman was not sure how long he had been unconscious after Copperhead had sunk his teeth into him, but he knew that it had to have been a few hours at least, as he found himself waking up in the Watchtower's medical center, with Superman, J'onn, and Captain America standing over him. "The venom antidote is working," J'onn reported to the three heroes.

"Welcome back," Superman told his friend. "We were afraid we'd lost you."

"Luthor and the others…what happened," Batman immediately asked, showing that even after recovering from nearly dying by snake venom he was willing to get right down to business.

"They got away. All but Copperhead," Captain America replied. "Superman, Flash, and I are going to head down to Stryker's to interrogate him."

"Alright, let's go," Batman stated as he started to sit up, only to be stopped a minute later by Superman.

"No, you're staying here. That venom almost killed you," Superman reminded the Dark Knight.

"So," Batman asked like such a thing was no big deal, but the Man of Steel was going to have any of that.

"So you're staying here," Superman immediately ordered Batman in response, getting a Bat-glare from the caped crusader in response. Under normal circumstances, this would be enough to get someone to stop doing whatever Batman did not like them doing, but when it came to his friends' health, Superman was not one to budge, so he left it at that and left for the Javelin.

Steve stayed behind for another minute before looking to Batman and saying, "Just try to take it easy, soldier. It's never a good idea to go into a war when it may endanger your health."

Batman did not say anything in response, and as soon as Captain America left, he immediately yanked the IV out of his arm and stalked out of the room with J'onn hot on his trail. When the caped crusader started working on one of the computers, the Martian quickly became a bit more concerned and decided that he needed to intervene before Batman worked himself to death. "You really should be resting," J'onn told his friend, but Batman said nothing in reply and kept working, prompting J'onn to continue. "I know this must be hard for you, feeling vulnerable. Aside from Captain America, you're the only one of us without special powers, but you don't need to prove yourself. You're a valued member of this team, and we're only trying to…"

"I'm taking the shuttle," Batman interrupted as he finally stood up from his place at the computer, having found what he was looking for. When J'onn did nothing to step aside, Batman threw out another Bat-glare and added, "Unless you want to try and stop me."

"…No," J'onn finally conceded, and he allowed Batman to pass. As he watched the defender of Gotham depart, J'onn could not help but wonder if it was really alright to let Batman go off on his own like that, assuming the Dark Knight was going to do what J'onn thought he was going to do.

* * *

"The best at what you do," Luthor gripped to the villains he had gathered. "What was I thinking?"

This had been going on ever since they had returned to their hideout, as Luthor was more than upset over the fact that they failed in bringing down the Justice League. They should have had the advantage, since they had the element of surprise on their side, but they were easily dealt a swift defeat as though they were nothing, and that fact did nothing to give Luthor any reason to feel good about anything. With this in mind, a smart person would probably have kept quiet and waited for Luthor to calm down a bit before saying anything, but no one was willing to listen to Luthor's whining any longer than they already had.

"We did everything we could," Cheetah tried to say.

"Did you," Luthor asked. "Did you fight like your lives depended on it? Did you fight to the last man?"

"You get what you pay for, Luthor," Shade retorted.

"Are you saying you want more money," Luthor demanded. "You want to be rewarded for failure?! I ought to take the whole lot of you and…" Before he could get any further, Luthor found himself caught in Grundy's massive hand as the zombie started to choke the life out of him, but that did not mean Luthor did not have a way out of such a situation. "Go ahead, do it," Luthor prompted Grundy. "You'll be saving me from months of bedpans and feeding tubes, and you'll also guarantee that none of you will ever see a penny from me."

Grundy kept his hold on Luthor for another minute before he finally released the bald man from his grasp, with his only retort being, "You're crazy."

At that very moment, the door suddenly burst open as someone said, "And what's wrong with that? It's done wonders for me."

Looking to the person who had just barged in, everyone had to suppress a groan at seeing that the newest arrival was none other than the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker, and it was no secret to anyone in the criminal underworld that it was usually a smart idea to stay as clear of Batman's greatest foe as possible for a multitude of reasons. Lex Luthor knew this better than any of the gathered villains, having made a deal with the clown not too long ago in the hopes that Joker would kill Superman, only to have it backfire and blow up in his face later on, so he felt well justified when he demanded, "Get out of here!"

"Oh Lexie, I'm hurt," Joker immediately quipped as he wrapped his arms around Luthor's shoulders. "How could you have this little party without inviting me?"

"It's not a party," Luthor groaned in annoyance. "Grundy, get rid of him."

Grundy immediately started to do as he was told, but before he could grab the clown, he found himself coughing through a face-full of knockout gas that Joker had blown into his face with the air horn he pulled out of his jacket. With one of the group's biggest guns lying unconscious on the floor, the villains could only watch as Joker persisted in his argument by saying, "But seriously, Lex, you need me."

"Like we need a skin rash, Herr Clown," Strucker grumbled. If Joker had heard him, he immediately brushed it off when he plucked something off the back of Luthor's shirt that the criminal mastermind had apparently missed.

"Maybe so, mighty Baron, but I know something you don't know," Joker sang as he spun around to seat himself on Grundy's unconscious form, and then flashed a small, bat-shaped tracking for all to see. "I know how the bat thinks."

When he saw the tracer in Joker's fingers, Lex immediately found himself admitting that the clown had a point, and that if the plan he was forming was going to work then they did indeed need Joker here after all.

* * *

A few hours later, Batman had arrived at the villains' hideout, and quietly lowered himself inside so that he could scope out the situation without anyone knowing he was there. The tracer that he had planted on Luthor seemed to have done its job, and Batman was able to follow its signal right to where the group was currently located in the abandoned store. He was a bit surprised to see that instead of planning their next move, they all seemed to be seated around a table playing cards, or at least, that was what they were supposed to seem like they were doing, because seeing this quickly made it clear that they were just baiting him. The only problem was, every one of the criminals were well within sight of him, so there was no possible way that he could see for them to catch him off-guard or in some kind of trap, unless of course they were waiting for him to jump down so they could spring said trap.

Batman did not have a chance to think on the matter any further, as a minute later, something hit him from behind, hard, and he was soon falling down to the floor below, right to the point where he ended up crashing down onto the card table that the villains were seated around. The last thing that Batman noticed before he lost consciousness was the criminals gathering around his fallen form and the all-too-familiar sound of a certain clown's laughter echoing in his ears. Thankfully, he did not stay unconscious for long, but unfortunately, when he woke up, he was completely shackled and imprisoned in some sort of force field with each member of what the media was calling the Injustice Gang facing him, including their newest member.

"Joker. I should've known you'd be in on this," Batman snarled to the clown.

"Really? I must be falling into a rut," Joker chuckled in reply before he turned to the gang's leader. "You're not going to leave him like this are you?"

"Why," Lex asked.

"Hello! He's still alive!"

"And he's going to stay that way until I say we don't need him anymore."

"Lex, Lex," Joker chided. "Listen to someone who knows. Don't wait; do it now."

Lex could see Joker's finger reaching for his gun, and he immediately elbowed the clown off of him as he snapped, "You don't like my decisions? Leave!"

Joker rubbed his gut for a minute before he stepped back a bit and grumbled aloud, "And they say _I'm_ crazy."

While he was glad that he managed to shut the irritating, psychotic clown up for the moment, a look to his current associates quickly told Lex that the others shared Joker's sentiment in regards to the decision of keeping Batman alive. Luthor knew that this was mostly because one of Batman's strongest tactics was to strike fear into his enemies, but he knew that it was just an act, so he could not help but get irritated at the others before he finally snapped, "WHAT?! Those restraints are pure titanium; he'll never get loose, and that stasis field will prevent the Martian from locating him." Lex did not wait to see if he had successfully reassured anyone or not before he turned to the captive Leaguer and began interrogating him. "Now Batman, you must have some kind of passkey or access code I can use against your friends. Where is it?"

"Guess," Batman replied with a smirk, immediately getting Luthor a little riled up in response until he remembered that they had removed Batman's utility belt from him before tying him up, and he immediately turned to Grundy with a simple order for the zombie to try and get into the belt. It was a good thing Grundy was so big and able to take a beating from Superman, because the minute that the large zombie reached a finger into the belt, he was immediately hit with a blast of electricity that knocked him out cold.

"I told you," Joker sang after everyone saw Grundy's finger twitch a little to indicate that he was still alive.

"Shut up," Lex snapped at the clown before turning to the others. "Bring that upstairs. I'll get it open. Strucker, Grundy, watch him."

With but a thought, Star Sapphire encased the belt in an energy field and pulled it into the elevator with everyone other than Strucker and Grundy, who both cast a small glare at Batman, while the Dark Knight just narrowed his eyes in response. After spending a few hours or so in silence, Batman finally glanced from one of his current guards to the other before he decided to start causing trouble for the criminals. "Grundy, what's Luthor paying you for this," Batman asked the zombie.

"Money. Lots of it," Grundy replied in simplicity.

"As much as he's getting," Batman asked with a small nod towards Strucker.

"…I don't know," Grundy shrugged after a minute.

"Look at all you've had to put up with. You should be getting more," Batman reasoned, immediately drawing a glare from the baron.

"This dummkopf, being paid more than me? Don't insult me, Herr Batman. That is simply absurd," Strucker scoffed in irritation before turning away to flex his clawed hand for a minute, just to be sure that it was still working right, not knowing that he was playing right into Batman's hand with that comment.

"Is it," Batman asked Grundy. "Just so you know, 'dummkopf' is German for idiot. You're not going to take that, are you?"

Grundy said nothing in reply to Batman, but instead just looked at the baron with a growl, and a minute later, the zombie had lunged right for Strucker, leading the two to get into a straight up brawl. Strucker may not have been as young as he once was, but he was still able to keep ahead of the large, small-minded zombie fairly easily for a while, until Grundy finally caught him in a hold, forcing Strucker to turn his Satan's Claw on the zombie. Grundy let out a small cry of pain in response, having not expected that, but he did not let it bother him for long, and ended up punching Strucker in the head in an attempt to get the baron to cease his attack.

"Unhand me you worthless, dummkopf zombie," Strucker demanded as the elevator opened up again to reveal the other villains with the exception of Joker.

"Take that back," Grundy roared, immediately driving Luthor over the edge when he heard and saw what was going on.

"Stop it right now," Luthor shouted, bringing the brawl to an immediate halt, but not before Grundy hit Strucker in the head on last time. "You imbeciles are killing me faster than the kryptonite."

"Sorry," Grundy groaned in response, while Strucker simply huffed and walked away with his nose up as though he had smelt something irritable, leaving Luthor to turn to the most likely cause of the sudden brawl.

"You did this, didn't you," Luthor demanded of Batman, only to receive nothing but silence in reply from the Dark Knight. "Well it won't happen again. Cheetah, take over here, and if our friend causes anymore trouble, gag him."

Cheetah just smiled in anticipation as Luthor and the others left the room, which only showed in how her tail swished back and forth in excitement, until she flexed her claws and hissed at Batman in a way that only cats did, but the only reaction Batman had to this was to mentally question how he always seemed to draw attention from cat-like criminal women.

* * *

After leaving Cheetah to watch over Batman, the villains had immediately returned to the makeshift lab that Luthor and Humanite had put together upstairs for multiple reasons, the primary one at the moment being getting into Batman's utility belt, and no one would say that they were glad to see that Joker was currently nowhere in sight for the moment. That relief quickly turned to mild concern for some when Luthor suddenly doubled over and clutched his chest in pain, immediately drawing the Humanite to his side in order to steady their leader. It was immediately obvious to Humanite that Luthor's condition was clearly worsening at the moment, but to the others, it was not quite as clear.

"What's wrong," Sapphire asked in honest concern.

"He don't look so good," Grundy noted as Luthor started gasping for breath a little.

The only one who did not show much concern for Luthor's health in his words or otherwise was the Shade, who simply remarked, "Maybe we should get paid now."

That served as the perfect incentive for Luthor to collect himself and put on his best show of looking to be in perfect shape as he shrugged off Humanite and turned to the other four and snapped, "I'm fine. Now get out! We've got work to do."

The others looked between themselves for a minute before they finally turned to leave the room, allowing Lex to drop the act and freely groan in pain without worrying about appearances, while Humanite brought over a chair for him. "They're right. You don't look good," Humanite told Luthor as he helped Luthor to sit down.

"Can't give up now…I just need to buy more time," Luthor groaned before he turned to the criminal genius. "Can't you help?"

Humanite turned away with his hands behind his back in thought for a minute, until he finally said, "Perhaps, but…"

"But what," Luthor demanded when the larger criminal trailed off.

"It will cost extra," Humanite smirked in reply, drawing a groan from Luthor that indicated that Luthor would pay that extra even if he did not like it and found it to be somewhat annoying.

* * *

Around that same time, Superman, Flash, and Captain America were starting to reach their wits end with the interrogation of Copperhead, as the snake villain was not giving up anything in regards to the Injustice Gang. Whether it was to save his own skin from facing his teammates' wrath if he were to betray them, or if it was due to some sort of policy that kept him from double crossing the people who were paying him, they really could not care, because they really needed to track down the criminals before anyone got hurt. This was a fact that they had tried to make abundantly clear to Copperhead, but the snake just kept giving them the same story over and over again.

"I keep telling you, I don't know anything," Copperhead continued to insist, glaring down at his snake head and gloves that were well out of his reach at the other end of the table. "I'm just an innocent…"

"Victim of circumstances. Yeah, yeah, we know," Flash interrupted, having started to get really fed up with hearing that same blatant lie so many times now. Apparently, Flash was not the only one, as a minute later, Superman had crossed the room and shoved Copperhead up against the wall with one hand, thinking he could take a page out of Batman's book.

"Copperhead, when are you going to get some sense and tell us where Luthor is," Superman demanded in the most powerful, threatening voice he could manage.

It was not threatening enough though, because Copperhead's only response was to smirk in amusement and say, "This must be the part where I get so scared I spill my guts."

"I'm warning you," Superman cautioned as he raised his other fist up to seem like he was going to run it through Copperhead's skull, but it did nothing to frighten the snake in the slightest.

"What're you going to do, Boy Scout," Copperhead asked in mockery. "Short my sheets? Give me a wedgie?"

Superman glared at Copperhead for a few more minutes until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Captain America silently asking him to let the super soldier have a try. As soon as Superman had let the snake down, Copperhead was ready to continue with his brave stance, but when Captain America slammed the edge of his shield into the wall at a point that was extremely close to Copperhead's head, the snake immediately clammed up in fear. "That was your only warning," Cap told the criminal. "Now if you don't want me to break every bone in your body, I suggest you tell us what we want to know."

"Y-you're bluffing," Copperhead stuttered. "You wouldn't hurt me anymore than Supes over there would. Y-you wouldn't resort to needless violence."

"After how you poisoned Batman, it wouldn't be violence. It would be justice," Captain America snarled. "Now where are they?"

"I-I don't know," Copperhead said. "I swear, it's like I keep telling you, I'm just an innocent…"

Copperhead was not able to say anymore, as he had to let out a cry of pain when Captain America suddenly slammed his shield into the snake's shoulder, dislocating it. "Try that lie again, and next time I might not leave your arm attached."

Copperhead said nothing in reply, and eventually just passed out from the pain, much to the heroes' irritation. Seeing as they were not going to get any information out of Copperhead, they then simply allowed Steve to relocate Copperhead's shoulder before telling the guards that they could take the criminal back to his cell for the moment. When the guards asked what had happened to Copperhead, Captain America simply said that he ended up falling asleep when he tried to convince him to talk by making him listen to old, boring war stories. As soon as they had left the room, Flash looked to his friends and simply said, "That went well."

Superman nodded in agreement before he asked Steve, "You weren't actually going to hurt him that much, were you?"

"Not a chance, soldier," Steve replied. "I just figured that I would have a better poker face than you do."

Superman and Flash both had to smile in response to Cap's little joke, but it did not keep them from wondering the simple question that Superman voiced for them all a minute later. "How does Batman do it?"

* * *

The long night for both heroes and villains continued to drag on as Luthor and Humanite prepared to make another attempt at opening Batman's utility belt while Joker just paced around the room with one thing in particular currently on his mind. "She's been down there too long," the clown stated when he finally stopped pacing.

Luthor did not want to admit it, but the clown did have a point. Cheetah had been down there with Batman for quite some time now, but even a fool would know that what Joker was really hoping to hear at some point. "Forget it," Luthor told Joker, point blank. "There's no way I'm going to leave you alone with him."

"But Lexie, where's your sense of fun," Joker asked as he rolled across the floor in a swivel chair, only serving to further irritate Luthor. "Besides, it won't cost you a cent."

As tempting as that was, Luthor knew better than to trust Joker with anything, especially in regards to Batman. "Humanite, go relieve Cheetah," Luthor quickly ordered before the clown got any ideas.

"Can't you send Grundy," Humanite asked. He was not really complaining, but he honestly thought that simple guard duty was beneath him, and Luthor did need his help if the bald man was going to last much longer with his cancer getting worse.

"Just do what I say," Luthor snapped, and Humanite ended up begrudging Luthor of the request, all the while grumbling something about a funeral. Joker could only grin at Lex's attempts to keep him from having some "fun" with the Dark Knight until his attention was brought to the machine Luthor was using to open the utility belt. So far, the device had been unsuccessful in getting past the belt's defenses, but a short burst of electricity later, and every pocket on Batman's famous belt popped open. "Finally," Luthor grinned as he and the clown both raced over to empty the belt of its contents.

"What're you looking for," Joker as he picked up a batarang to examine. "Bat-car keys? Bat-breath mints? Ooh, what about an autographed poster of Captain America or Iron Man?"

"Why would Batman have a poster of Captain America or that armored buffoon that Stark has acting as his bodyguard when he isn't out 'saving the world'," Luthor asked, incredulously.

"I'm surprised you need to ask," Joker replied. "At least, in Captain America's case, anyway. Iron Man on the other hand, well you're guess would be as good as mine."

Luthor had to shrug in conceit of that point, but he was immediately scowling at the clown again when he gave the batarang he was examining a toss at some nearby crates and then exploded. "Careful you idiot," Luthor snapped as Joker just laughed the explosion off. Before he could add any more to what he was saying though, Luthor glanced into one of the belt's pockets and his eyes immediately widened. "This is it," the criminal mastermind declared as he pulled out a small remote.

"What," Joker asked, having not gotten what Luthor was thinking.

"The key to our victory," Luthor proudly declared.

* * *

The three heroes who had been interrogating Copperhead were about to go back in for another round of questioning, when the League communicators immediately sent out an alert from the Watchtower. They immediately tried to get in touch with J'onn, but when the Martian hero did not respond, their worry only increased until Flash and Superman said that they would try to see if they would have better luck with the Javelin's communicators. When Captain America joined up with them outside, he saw that Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl had just arrived on the scene, indicating they had received the alert as well and had come to Stryker's to meet up with them.

"Still no word from J'onn," Diana asked.

"Not since he sounded the alarm," Superman replied.

"Something's wrong up there. I can feel it," Hawkgirl immediately stated.

"Then let's go," Lantern stated, as he immediately led the way up the Javelin's boarding ramp with the others right behind him. As the League's main mode of transport lifted off the ground and flew off into space, Steve could not help but glance out the window in slight awe while also making a note to have someone show him how to fly the ship at some point in the future should the need for him to do so ever came up.

When Hawkgirl glanced over to see Steve still staring out the window, she began to get a little concerned and had to ask, "Are you okay, Captain?"

Steve silently nodded in response and stated, "In my day if something went this high, we didn't call it an airplane."

"Well what did you call it," Diana asked in honest curiosity.

Steve immediately turned to both women with a serious expression on his face that hid a small smirk of amusement as he replied, "Science fiction."

The two female members of the League just stared at Steve in disbelief for a minute until Flash finally let out a laugh in response to the small joke, leading Cap to explain that it was funny because it was true. They were all rather thankful for Captain America's attempts at easing the tension they were all feeling, but the time for laughs quickly came to an end once again when the Watchtower came within view, and not a minute later, Superman landed the ship inside the hangar and Flash led the team out into the station so that they could look for their friend. He did not have to go very far, or even need to use his super speed to look, as the minute the speedster had made it down the boarding ramp, he heard a soft groan of pain, and immediately turned to see J'onn lying on the floor just a short distance from the ship.

"He's out cold," Lantern stated after he and the others had joined Flash in racing over to their unconscious friend.

"What could've happened," Diana immediately asked.

"That's what we need to find out," Captain America stated.

"Agreed. I'll take J'onn to the medical bay. You find Batman," Superman ordered everyone before scooping the Martian up into his arms and flying in the direction of his destination.

Once Superman was out of sight, Captain America turned his attention to the others and said, "We should probably assume that someone might have managed to get in here, just to be on the safe side."

"That's impossible," Hawkgirl protested. "No one could get in here without setting off the alarm unless they had clearance to be in here."

"Just because something is hard to do, doesn't mean it's impossible," Cap argued. "So, Flash, Diana, and I will run a check of the tower and its systems. Lantern, Hawkgirl, you find Batman or any clues on wherever he might have gone to."

Everyone immediately nodded in acceptance of those orders and quickly took off to carry out their assigned jobs. It did not take long for Cap, Diana, and Flash to check the entirety of the station and its systems before they had determined that everything seemed to be in place, and once they had finished they quickly joined Superman in the medical bay so that they could check on J'onn. While the Martian was still unconscious, it turned out that he would be just fine in a few hours, something they were all relieved to hear, but the good news did not last forever, as a moment later, Lantern and Hawkgirl arrived in the room to inform everyone that they could not find Batman anywhere and that the shuttle was gone, immediately telling everyone that Batman had obviously left the Watchtower for some reason.

Before anyone could come up with an idea on where Batman might have gone in the middle of the crisis that they were dealing with, one of the Watchtower's communicators suddenly rang out, signaling that someone was trying to contact them. Being closest to the comm. station in the wall, Diana immediately picked up the headset in the hopes that it was Batman trying to contact them. "Hello," the princess immediately asked, only to hear something that she did not expect. "I beg your pardon?…Where? Hello? Hello?!"

"What did he say," Superman asked.

"It wasn't Batman," Diana immediately stated. "It was someone saying there's a bomb up here."

"Must be some kind of joke," Flash reasoned.

"No, this is serious. That's a secure line," Superman immediately pointed out, proving just how serious it was to everyone in a matter of seconds.

"Then what're we waiting for," Captain America asked as he grabbed his shield from where he had set it down against the wall after he came in. "Spread out and find it!"

The League did not need to be told twice, as they were all immediately racing off to search every area of the Watchtower that they could in every way that they were able to. Flash was quick to search every inch of the control room in a matter of seconds, only to find nothing, while Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl had no better luck in the upper levels. Even Superman was having trouble locating the explosive with his x-ray vision, but no one was planning on stopping until they found it, and they all kept at it until Lantern spotted something in the hangar with his ring.

"I've got a thermal pattern," Lantern reported to Captain America, who had been searching the hangar with him, and to the others via his communicator. As soon as he heard that, Steve immediately headed to where John was aiming his ring's light to follow the trail, right over to a number of large, metal crates until he finally spotted a brown briefcase, and a small scan from Lantern's ring was all either of the two needed to prove that said case was definitely the bomb they were looking for.

"Flash," Captain America immediately shouted.

"I'm on it," Barry replied as he appeared in the room a minute later to scoop up the bomb and run it towards the hangar doors. Captain America quickly hit the controls to open said doors for the speedster, and as soon as they were opened wide enough, Flash gave the bomb a hard toss, sending it flying out into space, where it safely detonated without causing any damage to anyone or anything, much to everyone's relief.

* * *

A short while after everyone had caught their breath again, the League were all gathered around the medical bed J'onn was resting on while they waited for Hawkgirl to get into contact with Batman, with no success in the slightest. "Batman's still not answering," Hawkgirl informed everyone after her latest attempt at dialing up the Dark Knight.

Everyone had to suppress a groan of annoyance when they heard that, until J'onn suddenly stirred from his sleep and moaned, "It was Star Sapphire, Grundy, and the Shade. I saw them coming, and then everything went black."

"Take it easy soldier," Steve cautioned the Martian. "Just give yourself a chance to heal before you try to push yourself."

J'onn nodded in understanding before he relaxed against his pillow, leaving everyone to wonder the most important question in regards to the newest information. "How could they have gotten in," Diana asked.

"Only one way: with Batman's transmitter," Lantern stated, immediately causing everyone to become even more concerned for their teammate than they already were.

Thankfully, Cap was able to shake himself out of his concern, thanks in part to his years of training as a soldier, and immediately said, "We can send someone back down to Stryker's and have them take another go at interrogating Copperhead while the rest of us comb the city for any hints of their location. As soon as J'onn is recovered, he can use his telepathy to try and locate Batman."

"Assuming they haven't found a way to keep him from reaching Batman telepathically," Flash pointed out.

Before anyone could say anything else, J'onn's eyes suddenly snapped open and he sprang up in bed as he announced, "I know where he is."

No one even bothered telling the Martian to go back to sleep this time, and they all simply elected to race for the Javelin so they could head to Batman's location, and more than likely, the location of the Injustice Gang as well.

* * *

Admittedly, Luthor would have been much happier if the bomb had destroyed the Watchtower, and he had used one of his old spy satellites to watch it happen in the belief that it would happen, and that the Justice League would go with it, but sadly, the League had somehow discovered the bomb, and the space station was still in one piece, much to Luthor's ire, and he could only think of one way that could have been possible. That did not matter at the moment though, as Humanite was ready to implement whatever he had in mind for helping him with his kryptonite cancer, and after making sure that he had secured the continued loyalty of the other members of the Injustice Gang, he was now ready to be given that help. Sure he had to promise that he would triple the pay for each of the others, but it would not matter, as he would soon have the League destroyed while he lived on.

Now he was just lying on the table in his boxer shorts as Humanite worked the various controls for whatever he had in mind to ease Luthor's condition, and after watching Humanite turn a few knobs and pulling some levers, he soon found himself elevated above the table as a green chest piece was lowered on top of him, with the back of the chest piece coming up from below a second later. With everything in place, Humanite pulled down on a lever and activated a powerful jolt of energy that surged through the chest piece and Luthor, causing the former CEO of LexCorp to cry out in pain until Humanite finally shut it down. A minute later, Lex was getting his breath back and the chest piece's center was glowing with the same shade of green as kryptonite.

"Will he be alright," Cheetah eventually asked Humanite after a minute.

"This containment unit should stabilize his condition," Humanite explained as he removed his gloves and lab coat. "The next few minutes will tell."

Before anyone could say anything more on the matter, Grundy suddenly rushed in, shouting, "Mister Luthor! Mister Luthor! Batman broke that…static thingy." The zombie did not mention the fact that Batman was only able to do so because Grundy had given him some water, but he did not want to risk getting his boss upset by mentioning every last detail. Grundy was not that stupid.

Knowing that Grundy was referring to the stasis field that was keeping Batman from alerting the Martian to their location, Humanite had to scowl as he said, "He's probably already contacted the Martian. They'll be here soon."

"What are we gonna do," Grundy asked.

"Don't panic," Luthor finally said after a minute, drawing everyone's gaze onto him as he stood up from the table, his newly regained strength showing in how his stance was much taller and more powerful than before. "We'll be ready for them, once we get rid of the traitor."

That threw everyone for a loop, as they did not expect Luthor to tell them that someone had betrayed them, and naturally, they were all curious as to why the bald man would say there was even one among them in the first place. "Think about it," Luthor reasoned. "The only way they could've found the bomb is if someone told them. One of us."

"You are forgetting that Captain America is among their number now, and he is no fool, having served in World War II," Strucker pointed out. "If they found the Martian unconscious, then he would likely have suspected that someone broke in and told everyone to search the station."

"Yes, he would have _suspected_ it," Luthor stated, placing a heavy emphasis on the word "suspected" as he did. "If it was just a guess, then they would have just taken their time in looking and likely still been blown to Hell before they ever found the bomb, but the fact that they did find it would suggest that it's much more likely that we have a traitor in our midst, and fortunately, this old place still has functioning surveillance cameras."

A minute later, everyone was gathered around the monitor as Luthor brought up the feed from said cameras, and they all watched for any sign of who the traitor might be. They did not have to wait long, as soon enough, they all saw Cheetah standing before Batman and then kiss the Dark Knight, long and hard. When she saw that image appear on the screen, Cheetah immediately looked to see everyone throwing hateful glares towards her, and she immediately protested, "No, I didn't! I wouldn't!"

Unfortunately, Cheetah's claims were not believed, and she was quickly forced to make a run for the exit, only to be intercepted by Joker, who quickly knocked her out with a shock from the electric joy buzzer that he normally kept on hand. "And they say I'm not a team player," Joker remarked with a smile.

"Grundy, the pretty kitty is all yours," Luthor told the zombie, and everyone soon found themselves watching as Grundy hauled a still-protesting Cheetah off to "play" with the pretty kitty, leaving Luthor with only one thing to say. "Now let them come."

* * *

No one in the League was going to kid themselves into thinking that the Injustice Gang was not going to be expecting them, as the only way Batman could have alerted J'onn to his location after all this time would be if he had managed to find a way to escape them for a moment, which meant they were likely facing a hostage situation where Batman would end up being used as a shield. Determined not to let such an event occur, J'onn immediately phased out of sight and into the building, fully intending on freeing the Dark Knight, and all the rest of the team could do from that point on was wait. That was almost half an hour ago, and at that point, everyone's patience had worn out, especially in the case of a certain woman with wings.

"Time's up. Now we do it my way," Hawkgirl declared, and she was soon leading the charge into the photo store that was now serving as the Injustice Gang's base of operations. The minute that the League came crashing in through the entrance, walls, or windows, Star Sapphire immediately fired an energy blast that sent Flash crashing into Hawkgirl before either of them could get close to their opponents, leading Green Lantern to retaliate with a blast from his ring that quickly lead the members of the two different Lantern Corps into an aerial dogfight, while Grundy was knocked into another room by Superman. Hawkgirl did not stay down for long, and the minute she was on her feet again, she made another charge for Strucker, Joker, and Shade, only for the shadow master to capture her in a blast of darkness from his nightstick.

"One down," Shade boasted, but he had gloated a little too soon, as he soon found his nightstick being yanked out of his hand by Wonder Woman's lasso. Strucker was about to fire his laser pistol at the Amazon, but thankfully, Captain America was quick to intercept the baron before he could fire a single shot, leading the two to resume their previous face-off once again. Seeing that Cap had Strucker occupied for the moment, Diana immediately swooped down to capture the Joker in her lasso while knocking Shade out of the fight momentarily with his own cane before reeling the clown in.

Joker just smiled in response to Wonder Woman's attempt to capture him, and then tossed a small doll to the princess that blew up a second after she had caught it in her hands. The clown prince of crime then shrugged the lasso off of his person, but was forced to move quickly in order to stay clear of the brawl between Superman and Grundy that had just came crashing back into the room from the wall that he was standing near just a moment ago. Thankfully, Superman had the advantage in his fight, and was easily able to throw everything Grundy could give right back at the zombie. When Grundy tossed a large statue of a cartoon duck at Superman, he easily smashed the statue in half, while making sure that a part of the statue was heading in the direction of Star Sapphire and Green Lantern.

Seeing what Superman had done, Green Lantern quickly paused in his assault on the rogue Sapphire and pointed behind the woman as he shouted, "Duck!" Sapphire just smirked, thinking that Lantern was trying to use some childish trick on her, and as a result, she ended being hit in the back by the cartoon duck statue, while Green Lantern merely swerved out of the way. "I tried to warn her," John shrugged with a smile.

What the Green Lantern of Earth did not know, was that Shade had managed to regain his senses and retrieve his nightstick, and he was now more than ready to cast the galactic defender into a swarm of shadow. Thankfully, Flash was able to take notice of the fact, and immediately raced over to slam a hard punch into Shade as he quipped, "Lights out Shade."

Shade ended up falling right into arm's reach of Hawkgirl, who immediately swiped his nightstick away from him once again, and then knocked him out with the cane before snapping it in half over her knee. The two then averted their attention to Superman and Captain America's fights with Grundy and Strucker, and while Flash was kept away from the battle between the Man of Steel and the zombie by a number of exploding marbles that Joker had thrown into his path, Hawkgirl was able to effortlessly connect a hard blow from her mace to Strucker's artificial right arm, just as the former HYDRA leader was about to use it to drain Captain America's youth and strength, immediately returning what was taken back to the captain.

"You will not stop me, Herr Captain," Strucker snarled. "Do you hear me? HYDRA will rise again, no matter what you, your allies, or even the likes of Luthor attempt. If you cut off one head, two more will…"

Strucker was unable to finish what he was saying, as Captain America immediately knocked him out with his shield before he could. When he turned to see Hawkgirl throwing him a confused look, he simply explained, "I heard that slogan enough times in the Forties already. Didn't need to hear it again in the present."

Hawkgirl smiled in good humor and then joined Captain America in hurrying over to Superman so that they could help him defeat Grundy and then go find Luthor. It soon turned out that they did not need to do either though, as Superman was able to finally knock Grundy out of the fight after a few more blows, the last of which sent the zombie through a wall, but his victory ended up being short-lived when Luthor struck the last son of Krypton from behind with a green laser blast. Looking to his old foe, Superman immediately found Luthor sporting a dark green suit of armor with black gloves and boots, while his head remained exposed, allowing the sinister smirk on Luthor's face to be seen by all.

"I'm going to enjoy every moment of this," Luthor declared as he stopped over to where Superman was now holding onto a wall in order to stay standing, proving that the ray he had been shot with was a kryptonite-based weapon. "Why so surprised, Superman," Lex then questioned when he saw the Man of Steel giving him a shocked expression. "It's a basic rule of business: turn every weakness into a strength." He then fired a continuous burst of kryptonite energy into Superman at point-blank range, drawing an agonized cry from the Kryptonian as he finished, "Of course, that's a lesson you may not live to appreciate."

"Neither will you, Lex," a voice suddenly declared from behind the bald man, and the next thing Luthor knew, he was being hit with a massive amount of electric bolts from the back, forcing him to cease in his attack completely. When the shocks finally ceased, Luthor only had just enough energy to turn around and stare in surprise when he saw who had attacked him.

"Et tu, Humanite," Luthor groaned just before he passed out, for there, standing behind him with a shock rod in his hand, was none other than the Ultra Humanite, serving as proof that Cheetah really was not the traitor.

The rest of the League then prepared to move in on Humanite, only to pause in surprise when Humanite dropped his weapon and raised his hands up in defeat as he said, "I surrender."

Everyone just stared in silence for a few minutes until Flash finally said, "Well, why can't all bad guys be like that?"

"I'm thinking it's because we'd be out of a job if they were," Captain America quipped in reply, drawing chuckles from the rest of the League until the captain noticed that there was still one person missing from the gang of villains. "Where's Joker?"

* * *

When he saw that everyone in the Injustice Gang was beaten, Joker was more than ready to beat a hasty retreat, until he remembered that there was still one piece of unfinished business left for him, and after pulling a pistol from his jacket, he immediately headed down to the basement to deal with that business, and finally kill his old foe once and for all. When arrived in the basement though, he was shocked to find that Batman was not encased in the titanium restraints and nowhere in sight. Joker spun around the room a few times with his gun forward, glaring at every shadow and corner there was until he ended nearly walking right into the Dark Knight in his searching. Batman then easily disarmed Joker with a lazy slap on the hand that the clown was holding his gun in, and then intercepted a punch that Joker threw with ease, knocking the clown back a few feet, much to Joker's further irritation.

"No fair," Joker whined as he managed to return to his feet again and turn to face Batman. "How'd you get free?"

"I could've escaped anytime, but I thought I'd stick around to keep an eye on you clowns," Batman revealed, and he let that sink in long enough for him to hit Joker with one last punch.

"You're despicable," Joker moaned in what could easily be considered a near-perfect impression of Daffy Duck, and then promptly passed out, leaving Batman to broadly smirk in response.

* * *

A few short hours later saw the League overseeing the transport of the defeated and captured supervillains into police custody, after they had made sure that Batman was okay and allowed the Dark Knight to retrieve his utility belt and gadgets from where Luthor had it in his lab, and there was no hiding anyone's relief at the sight of the criminals being captured. Just before he was brought into the police truck that would be taking him and the others back to Stryker's though, Humanite paused in his tracks to look towards Batman and ask, "You'll keep our bargain?"

"Yes. Double what Luthor was paying," Batman nodded, immediately causing Humanite to smirk in response before he vanished into the truck and taken away with the others.

"What was that all about," Flash asked, only to receive a small smirk from Batman in response before the Dark Knight swung away into the night on his grappling line.

"Well, I think we can safely say that the only one who knows how Batman does it is Batman," Captain America commented, having remembered Superman's question from earlier that night after that small exchange. "Or to put it more simply, it's because he's Batman."

Everyone immediately nodded in agreement with Captain America's thoughts and soon turned to climb back aboard the Javelin in order to return to either the Watchtower or their respective homes for the night. As she was boarding though, Diana had to ask the others, "What do you think Humanite would want money for anyway?"

* * *

The following night in Stryker's saw Luthor facing the very same dilemma with getting any sleep that he had before, as Humanite had been made his cell neighbor once again, which meant that he had to listen to the opera music that the criminal genius seemed to enjoy so greatly, much to Luthor's irritation. He was glad that the authorities had allowed him to continue wearing the chest piece that Humanite had designed to stabilize his condition, but that was a small comfort to Lex when compared to the fact that his plans had all been foiled once again by the ape listening to what he had called caterwauling next door, and eventually, he had heard more than he could bear.

"HUMANITE," Luthor shouted in anger as he pounded on the walls of his cell. "You'll pay for this, you turncoat! Do you hear? YOU'LL PAY!"

Humanite just smirked in response to Luthor's promise of revenge before he turned his attention back to the program he was watching with a much more gentle smile as the program came to an end at last with one final announcement. _"This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra Humanite, and viewers like you."_

* * *

 ** _AN: Okay, so, not much changed here, and I'm sure some of you noticed how Cap didn't really seem to do all that much this time around. There's actually a few reasons for that. The first being that Cap's just joined the team, so he's still learning about how to work with them and all that fun, yet bunch of boring stuff, and really, kinda hard to let someone else really shine in a chapter where Batman had done so. But I hope you'll all notice that another MARVEL villain has appeared, one Baron Strucker of HYDRA, and it looks like he's got a plan for the old war organization. Am I going to lead into a rebirth of that group sometime later on down the line? Sorry, but I'm not telling._**

 ** _Another thing I'd like to note is the little exposition on Star Sapphire. Now I know there's probably like a whole thing about her in the DCAU, but I really liked Green Lantern: The Animated Series and how they did the Star Sapphire Corps, so I figured I'd try and work some things from that series into this story. You may or may not see some more things from GLTAS later on down the line, but I'll leave that to your imagination._**

 ** _Also, I'm sure you all noticed that Captain America said that there were two girls that caught his eye back in the Forties. That's a little hint about something that's coming later on down the line, and if you know the Justice League series, then I'm sure you can guess what exactly that point down the line is, right? Well, enough about all of that. Speaking of Cap, I threw that little bit at the beginning there in so that you could all see that Cap wouldn't always be on the Watchtower at all times like J'onn or some of the other Leaguers seem to be, and that little job Cap now has for Tony, it's really a bit of a formality, as the only thing that Steve Rogers will be likely to do at Stark International is test a variety of gadgets and gizmos that Stark invents, and yes, I went with Stark International as the name for Iron Man's company in this story. I just really like the name to be honest. It seems a lot better than Stark Industries._**

 ** _Now that all of that bunch of boring stuff's been said, Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _Having begun to feel a bit homesick, Diana returns to Themyscria only to find that the island paradise has fallen into ruin, and her fellow Amazons and mother frozen in stone by a sorcerer named Felix Faust. Now, in order to save her home, Diana must gather three fragments of an ancient relic within the next twenty four hours, or her mother and sisters would remain in their frozen, petrified state forever, but just what sort of mystical relic is the princess really searching for, and just how far will she go in order to save her home? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 6: Paradise Lost** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	6. Paradise Lost

_**AN: Okay, so it's been a few months since I did anything with this, and I figure that an update for this chapter is a bit overdue. Of course the same could be said for some of my other titles like Gundam War Online, or **__**Iron Man and the Armored Avengers**_ _ **, or MegaMan: the First Net Saver, but I'm sure a lot of you would prefer to see some of my more popular ideas get updated over some of my lesser read works, and to be honest, it's a little hard to update some of these things when I have a hard time drawing the spark of inspiration for writing them. And of course there's also some of the other works I'm doing or plan to do like my Yu-Gi-Oh GX and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. crossover, Duelists of S.H.I.E.L.D., or the story that continues on from Keyblades of Future Past, which, if you've seen my profile, is going to be titled Kingdom Hearts: Dual Keys, but really, with so much already in the works needing to be finished, the closest of which being the Gundam SEED Prime Series, I'm sure you can all understand why I don't want to overwork myself by adding any more stories at the moment.**_

 _ **Joker: And they say I'm crazy. You're already overworking yourself with all these various titles. You just don't want to admit it, but then again why would you? It's all the more fun to leave these poor saps begging you for more in these various unfinished stories. I say just leave those three, unpopular ideas unfinished and have them all spend the rest of their miserable lives begging for an update on them, while also leaving everyone else begging you post those stories you haven't started yet by never starting them at all! It's a perfect gag!**_

 _ **AN: Oi! I completely forgot that even without Deadpool around, I've still got to deal with you in this story. Oh well, at least make yourself useful and help me answer some reviews.**_

 _ **Joker: I suppose I could. Let's spin the wheel of shlups to answer! [pulls out a big game wheel before giving it a hard spin] And the first review to answer is...NOBODY'S! Yep, we're leaving you all hanging on those questions!**_

 _ **[AN pulls a lever that catapults joker into a giant clown pie, much to the psycho clown's laughing displeasure]**_

 _ **AN: Okay, so clearly I can't trust him to even do that, so, first off, in response to a review by "Lone Gundam". You know, I hadn't really put all that much thought into a Civil War-esque type of story line for this series, but now that I think about it, I just might be able to find a way to make it work later on down the line. To be honest, up until now, the closest thing we would be having to that would be at the point when we reach the Justice Lords story arc, and you'll see why when we get there, assuming you haven't already figured out why from that little hint. Seriously, I hope that didn't give away my big plans in regards to that whole thing.**_

 _ **Next up is a review from "AsajjVentress-JediSithAssassin". In all honesty, personally, I think Cap would probably would do alright as a Green Lantern, but I think he'd be a bit more likely to become a Blue Lantern, really, you know, since he inspires hope in others just by being who he is and all.**_

 _ **Now, I think that covers everything I wanted to address, so I'll let you guys get on with the story. Enjoy...**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Paradise Lost**

It had all started with a simple search and assist mission at a time when Metropolis was facing a severe hurricane, and while most of the citizens had managed to take immediate sheltered as they had been advised, there were still some people who did not quite make it in time and a few rescue workers who were out and about to help as best as they could, though in some cases, they were the ones who ended up needing rescuing. Thankfully, a little bad weather and some vehicles occasionally going off a bridge after spinning out of control were nothing that Superman and Wonder Woman could not handle, until the Amazon princess found herself distracted by the interaction between a small child she rescued and said child's mother. It had gotten her to thinking about how she had just left without saying anything to her own mother when the League was first formed and against her mother's wishes, and her moment of pause ended up causing her to be the one who needed saving when she failed to notice when a street lamp nearly crushed her. When she told the Man of Steel about her small case of homesickness, Superman suggested that she go back to Themyscira and set things right, and at that point, Diana knew that she could not put off the inevitable confrontation with her mother on this matter for any longer, so she decided to finally fly home so she could speak with her mother, telling Superman that she had no idea when she would be back.

After getting permission to use the Javelin to make her journey a little easier, Diana quickly set out for her island home once she had given a quick goodbye to her other friends in the League. That was a few hours ago, and now, the princess of the Amazons was facing a new problem: figuring out what to say to her mother when they met again. "You look more radiant than ever," Diana rehearsed to herself before her face fell and she shook her head. "No…Gone mother? I didn't go anywhere. I was in my room…alone…for eight months…Definitely not…The world was in peril! Would you have me stand by and do nothing?!" Even after that last one, Diana could not help but groan in misery at how bad that seemed to sound, and she immediately put a hand to her head and moaned, "Hera, give me strength."

This small rehearsal of ideas and things she could say when she saw her mother again continued until the Javelin had finally reached the point where she could see the island as the lights from one of its temples lit up the night sky above the ocean like a beacon of hope, and Diana could not help but smile when she saw that she had finally returned home at last. That smile immediately fell into a look of horror when she saw that the island paradise was ablaze with fires and much of it was in ruin, and the picture of destruction before her did not improve as she flew closer or even when she finally landed. If anything, it became much more terrible, for minutes after landing and disembarking from the jet, Diana had to gasp in shock when she saw her people had all been turned to stone, almost as though they had fallen victim to the cursed eyes of Medusa, and they were all clearly in battle when it happened, if the fact that they were standing in battle stances with weapons at the ready was anything to go by.

Eventually, Diana's eyes fell upon the temple where her mother's throne usually was, and she felt her fears and worries grow even more, prompting her to shoot off like a rocket towards the temple as she prayed that the queen of Themyscira was alright. Diana paid little mind to the statues that were positioned around the throne, as there was no sign of her mother in the room, and she quickly continued on into the inner chambers, until she finally saw her mother's figure, frozen in stone like the rest of her Amazon sisters with a fierce look on her face and a sword in hand, almost as though she had just prepared to face whoever had done this in a last, desperate attempt of defense. Diana immediately fell to her knees in sorrow as tears began to fall from her eyes and her arms wrapped around her mother's frozen figure, but she did not spend much time wallowing in sadness, as she quickly caught sight of the reflection of a figure coming from behind her in the shield that lay on the stairs next to her mother.

Acting quickly, Diana grabbed the shield and tossed it towards the likely intruder with all of her might. When the golden disk hit the figure, the grunt they let out made it clear as day that it was most definitely a man, and as he started to pull himself up with one of the fallen columns as a support, Diana saw that the man was garbed in a blue robe with a gold sash around his waist and a gold band around the hood of his robe. "Who are you," Diana demanded.

The man's only reply was a strange incantation as he turned around, and forced Diana onto the defensive as a flurry of mystical orbs raced towards her. A few quick deflections with her bracelets and some acrobatic prowess later, and Wonder Woman was able to bring herself to face her enemy's back, giving her the chance to use the column he had previously used to pull himself up as a large, blunt throwing weapon. The man immediately ducked down before the column hit him, but that ended up being exactly what Diana had wanted, for gave her just the opening she needed to charge in and land a powerful punch that knocked him to the ground against the fallen column once again, where Diana quickly pinned him. "How dare you defile this sacred ground," Diana roared as she reared back her fist for a finishing blow.

"Wait," the man cried out, forcing Diana to pause for a minute. "Harm me and the others will remain as they are: cold, hard stone."

That was all Wonder Woman needed to hear to know that this man truly was the one responsible for what had happened to her sisters, mother, and home, and while she knew that he was right in saying that she could not risk harming him too greatly, that did not mean that she could not scare him a little in order to get some answers. "Who are you? Talk," Diana demanded.

"My name is Faust. Felix Faust," the sorcerer revealed without even the slightest hint of fear in his tone. "I am a humble student of the mystic arts."

"Why did you attack my sisters," Diana snarled, clearly indicating that she was in no mood for games.

"They left me no choice," Felix easily answered. "I had to defend myself."

"By turning them to stone," Diana retorted as she easily lifted Felix off the floor with one hand.

Faust did not seemed the least bit fazed by the Amazon princess's fury, and simply continued to explain himself. "I came here in pursuit of ultimate knowledge. To gain this, I must find the fragments of an ancient, sacred relic. The first piece was here on this island."

That had Diana's attention, and she had a strong feeling as to what the sorcerer was driving at. "Go on," Wonder Woman persuaded.

"I'll make you a deal," Faust offered, confirming Diana's suspicions in an instant. "I'll restore your sisters if you help me get the other fragments."

"Why should I believe you," Wonder Woman immediately pointed out. She may not know much about man's world, but the Amazon princess did know enough about it to know that people like Faust were not to be taken at their word so easily. Spending time with people like Batman would easily teach you such things.

Faust only smirked, having clearly expecting such skepticism, and he instantly summoned a small, bronze medallion to his hand that had the image of Medusa's head on the center before aiming it at Diana's mother. "A small demonstration," Felix offered before he recited a small chant.

With his incantation spoken, the medallion glowed a bit, and soon enough, Diana's mother had been freed from her petrified state, causing her to drop her blade to the ground in weariness after holding it up for so long. Before Hippolyta could fall all the way to the ground, Diana had dropped Felix and raced over to catch the blonde queen of Themyscira, prompting her to look up and gaze upon her daughter's face in surprise. "Diana," Hippolyta gasped in happiness as she cupped her daughter's chin in the loving affection of a parent. "Athena heard my prayers and sent you."

"I'm so sorry, Mother," Diana silently wept in relief, until the moment was suddenly interrupted.

"What a touching reunion," Felix mocked, gaining glares from both Amazons.

Hippolyta did not hesitate for a second to attempt a charge on Faust with her blade ready, but Felix was still holding his medallion, and with but a simple few words, he instantly returned the queen to frozen, stone-cold state. Thankfully, Diana was able to catch her mother before the queen fell to the floor, but that did little good in preventing her anger from rising as she leveled a glare on Faust. "Monster," Diana shouted as she lunged for the medallion. "Give me that!"

Felix easily made the medallion disappear before Diana could even reach him, causing the princess to pause as he reminded her, "I need your answer. Will you help me?"

Diana wanted to punch this despicable sorcerer all the way into Tartarus, but a quick glance in the direction of her frozen mother immediately reminded her of what was currently at stake, easily reminding her that Faust was currently holding all the cards. After taking a minute to take a small, calming breath, Diana stood back a little and leveled a glare at Faust as she snarled, "What kind of man are you?"

"A practical one," Felix easily replied as he summoned an hourglass out of thin air before spinning it around as it floated in midair. "You have twenty four hours to bring me the rest of the fragments, otherwise, your unfortunate mother will remain like this forever."

"And where will I find these relics," Diana inquired, knowing that Faust likely had a way to find the relics himself and easily hand the tools necessary for doing so to her once she made it clear she did not know where to look.

Once again, Felix proved her right as he pulled out three, glowing stones from his robe and stated, "These gems are attuned to the mystic vibrations of each fragment. They will lead the way."

Diana hesitantly accepted the gems after they were offered, and she then leveled one final glare at the sorcerer as she warned, "Heed my words, Faust. You break your vow, no magic in the known universe will save you from me."

If Faust was worried about the princess's threat, he gave no indication as such, even as he reminded her that she was on a time limit, and his confident smirk remained firmly in place as he watched Wonder Woman depart from the island as fast as the Javelin could take her. Diana could tell that was the case as she could feel his gaze bearing into her until she was finally well away from the island a few hours later, at which point, she finally felt it was safe enough to make a call so that she could find out a little more about the sorcerer from someone that she knew she could trust. "Batman, it's Diana. I need some background information on a man named Faust. Felix Faust. He's some kind of sorcerer."

 _"Care to tell me what's going on,"_ the Dark Knight inquired, easily showing that he was already suspicious of why his fellow Leaguer suddenly required such information.

Before Diana could say anything in reply, she noticed that one of the gems Faust had given her had suddenly started glowing and flashing more rapidly than the others, indicating she was close. "I'm sorry, I have to go," Diana replied before closing the communication line and she quickly redirected the Javelin in the direction that the gem was indicating.

* * *

When he had heard what Diana needed him to look into, Batman could not help but raise an eyebrow before he asked her what was happening that suddenly prompted the question, and when the princess suddenly cut off communication, the Gotham defender quickly realized that there was a great deal going on that affected the Amazon in many ways, meaning that it was likely personal. Even so, no matter how personal it might have been, there was denying the fact that Wonder Woman was still very unfamiliar with how a lot of things worked outside her island home, and that was all the more reason for him to quickly tap a few controls on his keyboard as he asked, "Bat-Computer, track coordinates on Javelin Seven."

An instant later, the main monitor of his trusted super computer was displaying a readout of the Justice League's main mode of transportation, and when he saw where the ship was currently heading, he immediately knew that there was only one Leaguer who was closest to that same location, and in the city that the princess was heading towards. After double-checking the computer's data just to be sure and seeing that the jet was slowing to a stop right where he suspected that it would, Batman immediately tapped another command into his computer so that he could contact the Leaguer he was just thinking of, hoping that said teammate was not doing anything too important at the moment.

"Batman to Captain America, I need your assistance on something concerning Wonder Woman," the Dark Knight said into his communicator, knowing that the super soldier would likely answer seconds later.

* * *

In all honesty, Diana had been hoping to travel to New York for a while now, but she did not think that her first visit to one of the world's greatest cities would be on account of her current situation, and a small part of her had actually hoped that one of her teammates would be the one to show her around the city. Such feelings on the matter were unimportant right now though, as she had to focus on getting the relic that Faust had sent her after, and thankfully, she did not have to look for long thanks to the gem that she had been given, and also in thanks to the fact that the object was located in the local natural history museum's Greek section. While she was focused on finding the relic, Diana still could not help but look around at the various items and artworks that held so many similarities to her own culture, and she quickly found a smile coming to her face when she spotted a vase that had actually been made by an old friend of hers, not that the curators or the people who had recovered the item would have known that.

Eventually, her afterhours tour was soon brought to a close when she finally found a vase that was emitting a similar glow to the gem's, situated in a small area next to a large, bronze-gold statue. In her rush to retrieve whatever was inside the vase though, Diana failed to remember that security measures in man's world were different from those of Themyscira, and as a result, she ended up tripping the alarm and causing the museum to go on lock down. Knowing that she only had a limited amount of time before the authorities showed up, or worse, Captain America or one of the other rumored defenders of New York, like that one arachnid-themed vigilante, Diana immediately placed the gem away and smashed the vase open, revealing the relic she was after. After removing it from the vase, Diana had to furrow her eyebrows in confusion, as the relic in question seemed to be a small, cylindrical rock with no extraordinary properties. Why Faust would want such a thing completely puzzled the princess, but she did not get much time to think on it, as she was quickly flying out of the way of a massive, stone sword before it crushed her.

Looking upon the source, Diana had to gasp at the sight of the statue she had noticed earlier having come alive, no doubt being some sort of protector for the relic, which could only mean that it was much more dangerous than it appeared to be. Still, such matters were of little concern, as the fate of Diana's home depended on her retrieving these relics before Felix's time limit expired. Of course, that did not mean that she was just going to let this living statue as it was so that it could destroy the museum and eventually the city, so she immediately lassoed the statue's arm with a quick throw of her trusted lasso. Sadly, this proved to be a bad move on Diana's part, as the statue instead pulled her towards it and then sent her flying back into the opposing wall with a hard punch. While the blow had dazed Wonder Woman for a moment, it was not to the point where she was unable to rise up and then dash into the air again in order to avoid the charging statue's sword. However, it was enough to cause her not to realize that she had dropped the relic after she had fallen to the floor again, and the statue easily showed this to be true when it displayed the relic in the palm of its hand before closing its fist around it.

"No," Diana cried out before she charged forward and tried to pry the statue's hand open. "Give that back! I must have it," Diana pleaded, but her pleas fell on deaf ears, as the statue eventually swatted her away like a fly, and sent her tumbling into the display that the relic had previously been housed in, bringing said display crashing down on top of her after she had collided with it.

Seeing that its opponent had apparently fallen, the statue swiftly approached the collapsed display and gently poked the rumble with its sword to make sure that the princess had fallen. After a minute or so of not receiving any response, the statue simply turned away to leave for parts unknown, until the sudden shifting of rubble caught its attention. When the statue turned towards the source, it was right at the exact moment that Diana had risen up from the rubble with a pillar raised over her head and a determined glare on her face as she declared, "I am Diana, princess of the Amazons. I won't be denied!"

With that, Wonder Woman tossed the pillar into the statue's knee, causing cracks to form in its lower leg after the pillar had hit. Before the statue could retaliate, Diana had already closed the distance between them and landed a hard punch across its front that sent it crashing into the supports and wall behind it, opening a hole in the ceiling as it fell. Diana did not let up on her assault though, as she immediately charged again and delivered a pair of blows that literally knocked the statue's head clean off its body. Wonder Woman's beating on the living statue continued until the only things left of it were scattered rocks and the relic that she required, now freed from its hand. Seeing that she was now victorious in her struggle, Wonder Woman immediately swooped over and scooped up the relic, fully intending to leave before anything else happened, but unfortunately, her luck was just not in her favor tonight, as someone else appeared before her before she could even more towards an exit, and it was someone that she did not wish to see at the moment.

"Stand down Wonder Woman," Captain America shouted as he dropped down into the museum from the hole that the previous battle had opened up, his shield already on his arm. "Would you care to explain yourself?"

"This is not your concern, Captain," Wonder Woman immediately snapped in retort, hoping that Steve would take the hint and leave.

Of course, after a small glance at the destruction that had just been wrought upon the museum, coupled with what Batman had told him when the Dark Knight had called earlier that same night, Captain America did no such thing. Instead, he calmly replied, "When my friends start tearing up museums, it becomes my concern." Diana just turned away with a small, silent huff, clearly indicating that she had no intention of saying anything on the matter, and prompting Steve to say, "I've already contacted the others, and considering how fast Superman and Flash are, I doubt I need to tell you how soon they'll likely be here. They'll want an explanation when they get here just as much as I do right now." The super soldier's expression softened a little as he calmly approached Diana and gently placed a hand on her shoulder as he said, "Diana, I may not have been in this time for long, or known you for as long as I would've liked, but I do know enough to know that you would only do something like this if you had a good reason, so whatever it is, I'd like to hear about it before someone starts forming the wrong idea and something bad happens."

When Diana locked her gaze with Steve's, she could immediately see the honesty and assurance in his rather strikingly, beautiful eyes, and while it caused a slight tingling to form in her stomach for some odd reason she could not understand, it also made her feel all the more guilty for trying to brush off his concern like it was nothing of great consequence to her. It just showed her how right he was in what he said, so Diana ended up sighing in defeat and eventually nodded in acceptance of Steve's words, bringing a small, relieved smile to his face before she carried them both back out of the museum to a nearby rooftop so that they could wait for the rest of the League to arrive. Of course, they did make a point to make sure that they did not wait on a roof that was too close to the museum, as that would be a little more incriminating than either of them would have liked.

* * *

It was almost an hour later when Superman, Flash, and J'onn finally arrived, and seeing as she was not going to get out of this without telling them everything, Diana reluctantly informed the group of her encounter with Faust and the deal she had been forced to make. Hearing the tale immediately raised a number of red flags for the team, a point that they all made quite clear to Diana, but mostly out of concern that the princess was not fully aware of what she had gotten herself into. Diana immediately squashed those concerns after they had been voiced when she insisted, "Of course I don't trust this Faust, but what else can I do?"

Diana did have a point, assuming she was still dealing with this alone, a fact that Flash was all too happy to remind her of by punching a fist into his palm and saying, "I say we go back and kick the wimpy sorcerer's butt."

"No. Men are forbidden from ever setting foot on Themyscira," Diana immediately informed them.

"Somebody should've told him that," Flash shrugged in reminder.

"Besides, I gave my word that I would find the other relics," Diana countered, sadly.

Seeing how distressed their teammate was about this whole thing, none of the four could really say that they would be able to ignore any of this, as evidenced when J'onn said, "I'm afraid that leaves us but one course of action."

Looking around to the others, Diana saw each of her teammates exchange a quick nod between themselves, making her feel rather nervous about what action they would take, but that nervousness eventually vanished when they all gave her a reassuring smile as J'onn said, "We will have to help you."

Diana immediately smiled in thanks to her friends, feeling as though she could have kissed any of them right then and there, except for Flash since he would likely have never shut up about it for the rest of their lives. After taking a few minutes to decide that the best way to proceed would be to split into two teams in order to locate the other two relics along with who would be on which team, Diana handed one of the remaining gems over to Captain America's team and took to the air with Superman so that they could follow the other gem's trail, leaving the other three to fly to their next destination in the Javelin. Before he departed with the speedster and the Martian, Steve had to cast a small, worried glance towards his other two teammates as he hoped that they would be alright on their own, and that just reinforced his reasons for hoping that Batman eventually managed to find something on their mystery sorcerer.

* * *

It turned out that the relic that Flash, J'onn, and Captain America went after was actually in a jungle on the other side of the planet, so none of them were all that surprised that it had turned from being late at night to being in the middle of the day when they arrived at their destination. When they found a clearing to land the Javelin, the three immediately touched down and left the trusted ship as they moved out with Captain America holding the gem that was acting as their compass, until they reached a large temple in the center of the clearing. The whole time they were going though, Flash would not stop talking about the fantasies he was forming in regards to Diana's home and the Amazons that lived there.

"Picture it," Flash insisted to his teammates. "The sun, the sea, hundreds of women just like her running around, and me, the first man they've seen in…oh, maybe forever. Oh and look what I brought: iced mochas for everyone! Sweet."

"I fail to see the attraction," J'onn flatly stated as he followed after Steve.

"Man, you really are from Mars," Flash quipped with a small smile.

Steve could not help but shake his head in amusement before he decided to point out some of the flaws in Flash's little fantasy. "You know, I'm pretty sure that our not-so-friendly sorcerer, Faust has you beat in regards to being the first man that they've seen in forever," Steve pointed out. "And more importantly, if they are all just like Diana, then they'll probably want to kill you if you end up saying or doing something to offend them."

Flash had actually paled a little at the latter point, but he still raised his hands in admittance of the first one as he said, "Okay maybe not the first man they've seen, but definitely the first _good_ man that they've seen in forever."

"Somehow, I doubt they'll see it that way," Steve teased with a smirk as the gem glowed brighter the closer they got to the temple.

"Perhaps we should concentrate on finding the relic," J'onn suggested, bringing the two out of their mutual ribbing.

"No problem," Flash shrugged, and an instant later, the Flash blurred ahead of his teammates, taking the gem from Steve's hand before he raced into the temple, only to come back out a second later with a jar in hand. "See? That was easy," Flash boasted as he removed their target from the jar.

A minute later, Flash's smile fell as a sudden earthquake erupted, until a large, monstrous snake suddenly burst forth from the ground beneath their feet, forcing the three to jump back in an attempt to keep from being thrown on their backs. When the snake had fully emerged, it hissed at the three heroes before spewing forth a stream of fire from its mouth, forcing Captain America to jump in front of the group with his shield forward so that they were not burned by the inferno. "You know, for someone who's been a hero for so long, Flash, I would've thought you'd know better than to say stuff like that by now, because things like this always happen whenever you do," Cap remarked over the roar of the blaze that was bearing down on them.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry," Flash admitted. "Let's just take this thing down already before it burns us to a crisp, or makes us pass out from the smell of its breath."

Neither of the other two had a problem with that, and the minute that the snake had ceased spewing fire at them for a minute, Captain America took the initiative by throwing his shield at the oversized reptile's head as hard as he could. The vibranium disk easily dazed the slippery monster when it struck, and as soon as the shield had made its return trip to Cap's arm, the super soldier charged forth and flipped himself over onto the slimy monster's back so he could make his way up to the snake's head and strike it again with a hard punch. Steve then spun around the snake's neck in an attempt to kick it again, but the snake saw it coming this time, and immediately shook its massive body around rapidly enough to throw the captain off it and back down to the ground, where Steve landed with a crash.

Thankfully, Cap had managed to make sure that his shield took the worst of the impact when he landed, but he was still rather groggy for a moment, and that was all J'onn needed to see to go on the offensive. The only problem with that was that the snake monster unleashed another fiery blast on the Martian, and since Martians do not handle normal fires very well, J'onn was immediately falling back to the ground when he took the full brunt of the attack. Thankfully, Flash was able to race over and catch his friend from another planet before J'onn had hit the ground, and after using his super speed to disperse any lingering flames, the scarlet speedster immediately began spinning his arms at a rapid pace, creating a pair of small tornados that easily intercepted the snake's next fire blast.

"You're toast," Flash shouted as he increased the speed of his arms, which easily increased the power of the gust that was holding the flames back until they ultimately ended up being sent back to their source, setting the snake's head ablaze. The monster only roared in pain for a few seconds before it lunged towards Flash, but the speedster was easily able to dash out of the way and pull both of his friends to safety before the beast could strike. Once he had set them down, Barry immediately quickly regained the snake's attention and then raced up its back with its head chasing after him. Flash soon found his chance to slow the monster down when the snake curved its body in just the right way, and soon enough, the beast had tied its own neck into a strong knot, ending its fire blasts for the moment, and causing it to struggle against itself once it had realized what had happened.

Seeing that the beast was distracted for the moment, Flash immediately returned to J'onn and Cap's side and helped the Martian Manhunter sit up as he asked, "You guys okay?"

"We're fine, Flash. Thanks," Steve nodded.

J'onn quickly nodded in a similar response before he fully stood up and said, "You get the relic. We'll take care of the rest."

Flash nodded and immediately took off to where the relic had been previously dropped just as the snake finally managed to untangle itself. The beast immediately made a charge for the two heroes with a fire blast already prepared to be let loose, but when the blast was unleashed, Captain America was able to intercept it with his shield, knowing that the monster was getting closer as it kept spewing the blaze towards them. When the snake was finally close enough, Steve threw a nod to J'onn, and the Martian immediately leapt forward and struck the beast with his full strength, knocking the snake monster out in an instant.

"Remind me to never get on your bad side," Flash told J'onn after he had returned to with the relic and saw what had happened to the snake.

"Considering that people are calling him the Martian Manhunter, I think that would be a given by default," Steve quipped in reply, bringing a smile to both of his friends' faces when he did. Steve's face then became more serious as he took the relic from Flash to look it over and said, "From what Diana had said, this is now the second time that we've encountered some form of protection for these relics, and I get the feeling that Superman and Wonder Woman will have encountered similar problems with retrieving the one that they went after."

"Yeah, so," Flash questioned, not really seeing what his friend was getting at.

"So that means that someone clearly went to a lot of trouble to make sure that these things were not found or recovered. The question is why," Steve reasoned. That caused all three to pause and think for a minute until their communicators suddenly rang, prompting each of them to raise a hand to their ears that they wore the devices in.

 _"Steve, Flash, J'onn, it's Diana. Batman's found something about Faust,"_ Wonder Woman informed the three. _"He says that it's something that we need to see for ourselves though. Superman and I are already on our way over to him."_

"Roger that. We'll meet you there," Steve replied for the group. "Did you get the relic?"

 _"Yes, and it seems that powerful forces are at work here, given the protection that it had,"_ Diana stated.

"Are you both okay," Steve asked, worry easily seeping into his tone.

 _"We're fine. How are all of you doing?"_

Steve glanced at the unconscious snake monster and said, "Let's just say that I think we'll be avoiding a few reptiles for a while, but other than that, we're all fine. See you when we meet up."

 _"Roger that. I'll send you the coordinates that Batman's given,"_ Diana replied before ending the communication, and the three only exchanged a quick nod before racing back to the Javelin and taking off to see what the world' greatest detective had uncovered.

* * *

Sometime after the two teams had met up, they found themselves meeting Batman in what was clearly Felix Faust's apartment, at least if the various artifacts and books that had something to do with magic were anything to go by. After looking around for another minute, only J'onn could really think of anything to say. "Fascinating. Faust clearly has a great passion for learning."

"Not really as commendable as it usually is in this case," Steve muttered as he examined the bookshelves, a part of him being slightly reminded of some of the things he saw in HYDRA bases he had infiltrated during the war.

"Where'd he get this stuff? Warlocks R Us," Flash quipped as he picked up a strange scepter to examine, not noticing how an eye suddenly seemed to open on one end of the scepter while lightning seemed to spark to life.

"Careful Flash," Captain America warned. "You probably shouldn't be…"

Cap's warning was suddenly cut off when the scepter Flash was holding suddenly fired a beam right at him. Thankfully, the super soldier had managed to raise his shield just before the blast could hit, so he was sparred any great injury beyond being blown into the wall as a result. Seeing what his carelessness had caused, Flash immediately became concerned and asked, "Cap, you okay?"

"Fine," Steve lightly groaned as he pulled himself off the wall and gave his shield a small tap. "Just going to need to polish old faithful here off later on, but nothing too serious."

"Either way, sorry about that," Barry apologized in relief.

Of course, that was not quite enough for Batman, if the fact he snatched the scepter away from Flash with a glare was anything to go by. "Don't touch ANYTHING," the Dark Knight snapped. "We don't know what kind of powers we're dealing with."

Everyone immediately placed whatever object they examining back where they had found it and cautiously backed away after they heard that, and after a rather tense, uncomfortable silence confirmed that they were not likely to be blasted by anything again, Superman finally asked the big question. "So who is this Faust?"

"Felix Faust was once a respected professor of archeology, but when he became fascinated with the mystic arts, he was kicked out of the university for his heretical ideas," Batman explained as he showed everyone a picture of the sorcerer in question standing in front of some hieroglyphics and dressed in a smart, business suit as opposed to the robes Wonder Woman saw him in earlier that night. "He swore revenge on those who mocked him, and several later disappeared under mysterious circumstances."

"I have a pretty good idea what happened to them," Diana suddenly said, drawing everyone's attention to what she had been looking at, only for them to suddenly feel sick at what she had found. There, mounted above one of Faust's bookcases, were three, shriveled heads with horrified expressions frozen on their faces, and no one needed much imagination to figure out that those were not just decorations.

"Ewe," Flash exclaimed at the sickening sight.

"He's mad," Superman gasped in horror.

"I've seen some horrible things done to people because of HYDRA, but this is…actually pretty close to the same level," Captain America admitted, though he was still just as disgusted by the sight as the others were. He was just thankful that he had a great deal of training and experience as a soldier to help him deal with it for the moment.

"It gets worse," Batman revealed as he showed a book for everyone to see. "I found his journal. The last entries make reference to Tartarus."

It was a bit amazing that a streak of lightning had just flashed outside the window just then, adding to the dramatic effect that the news had on everyone, but no one really paid it much mind, as they were more concerned by how Diana's face had suddenly paled quite considerably. "The pit of lost souls," the princess murmured aloud.

"Isn't that just a myth," Superman asked.

"Trust me, Superman, a lot of things are said to be just a legend, but a lot of times, they are quite true," Captain America stated, his mind instantly going to the nature of HYDRA's secret weapon when he said that.

"I wish that this particular myth were just that," Diana admitted sadly. "Long ago in ancient times, my mother, Hippolyta fell in love with a god, Lord Hades. When war broke between the Olympian gods and their ancient foes, the Titans, Hades struck a treasonous bargain with the enemy. He would deliver Mount Olympus into the Titans' hands; in return, he would be given dominion over all of humanity. Hades tricked my mother into opening the gates of Olympus to the invading Titans, and there was a battle of which the Musses still sing. The gods fought back and eventually prevailed. As punishment for his treachery, Zeus cast Hades into the pit of Tartarus, where he would rule over the dead for all eternity, and for her unwitting role in Hades' plot, my mother was charged with guarding the gateway to the underworld. To make sure the gate could never be unlocked, its only key was broken up and scattered across the globe. Mother told me she kept one of the pieces in the temple as a daily reminder of her eternal shame."

"Then these relics we've been gathering are parts of the key," J'onn reasoned, just to make sure he was understanding correctly.

"But why would Faust want it," Flash asked.

"Only one reason: he intends to use it," Batman replied as he took the relics that the others had gathered and connected them each to one another, before turning to show them the assembled key. The key itself consisted of a pair of handles on either side of a large cylinder that had two extensions on the bottom connecting the main body to two smaller cylinders, giving an appearance of something that no one would expect for a typical key.

"Where is this gateway to the underworld," Steve asked, clearly already thinking a few steps ahead for ways to stop Faust from unleashing this form of Armageddon.

Sadly, a good number of those ideas became shot down when Diana revealed the location of the gateway. "Beneath Themyscira."

"Diana, you can't give Faust the key," Superman exclaimed.

"If I don't, my mother and sisters will remained petrified forever," Diana protested.

"And if you do, it could mean the end of the world," Batman pointed out.

Diana knew that Batman was right about that, but that did not change the fact that there was no other way to save her home and family. She did not want to let Faust get his hands on the key anymore than the others did, but at the same time, Faust was still the only person with the means of freeing her people from spending eternity as stone statues. With these thoughts running through her head, she found that she had no answer beyond just looking down to her feet in despair and defeat when J'onn finally asked her what she was going to do. At least, she did not have one until a red gloved hand suddenly found its way onto her shoulder, and caused her to look up to the patriotic hero that said hand belonged to in slight surprise.

"I know a few things about being backed into a corner like the one you're in right now," Steve revealed to his friend. "I've been in a similar position myself a few times where I had to choose between following regulations and saving my unit. Eventually though, I learned that there's only one right answer to such a situation: in order to win in such moments, you sometimes have to do what your heart is telling you is the best move to make, even if it goes against some of the most important rules and regulations, because people who can't abandon the rules if it means saving those they care about would be just as great a piece of scum as the people we were fighting against. Whatever you decide, you know that we'll have your back, even if the worst comes to worst."

Diana could not help but smile at Steve in thanks for what he said, not only because of how it had alleviated her concerns about the choice she would likely have to make, but also because it made her decision of what to do that much easier to choose in the end.

* * *

"I should thank you for raising such a devoted daughter," Faust told Hippolyta's petrified form in a moment of boasting as he waited for Diana to return. "She was so eager to cooperate." Faust's moment was suddenly interrupted when the door to the temple suddenly burst open, and Diana came flying in with an object under her arm that was covered by a cloth. Seeing the princess with what he could only assume was the object he desired in hand instantly brought an impressed smile to his face when he asked, "Back already? And with hours to spare. I'm impressed. Have you got the relics?"

Diana said nothing in reply, but instead, simply removed the cloth that was covering the object she was carrying, revealing it to be the assembled key, much to Faust's joy. That joy was quickly trampled though when Diana stepped back a bit after Faust attempted to reach out for it. "First, free my mother," Diana demanded, making it quite clear that was the only way she would hand the object over to the sorcerer.

"Oh yes, yes, of course," Faust nodded in enthusiasm as he summoned the medusa-head medallion to his hand once again. He then aimed it at Hippolyta and uttered the necessary incantation, freeing her from her stone state as soon as he had. Seeing that her mother was now restored, Diana quickly handed the key over to Faust as she knelt down beside the Amazon queen in concern, while Faust just beamed in victory for having finally acquired what he needed to finally receive that which he was promised. "After three thousand years, the key is finally complete," Faust declared in joy.

"Diana, you didn't," Hippolyta gasped in fear, hoping that her daughter truly had not done what she feared, but sadly, the princess could only hang her head in sorrow, showing that she had, and Hippolyta knew that it was only because her daughter had wanted to save her people.

"Thank you for your assistance, but now that your usefulness is over…" Faust told Wonder Woman as he prepared to cast the same spell to freeze mother and daughter in stone together. Thankfully, Faust never had the chance, a something suddenly struck him in the back and caused him to lose his grasp on the medallion, which was soon snatched up by a red blur. "What," Faust gasped in surprise as he looked to where the blur had gone to, only to gasp in surprise when he saw who had swiped his medallion.

"You're not the only one with an ace up your sleeve pal," Flash mocked as he casually tossed the medallion up and down in his hand.

"Or two," Captain America added as he mounted his shield back on his arm after catching it on its return trip from when he had thrown it into Faust's back.

Faust barely had any time to comprehend what had just happened, as Batman soon descended from above him on a grappling line and batted the sorcerer down to the ground with a hard punch, causing Faust to fall right to Captain America's feet as the Gothamite approached him, with Superman and Martian Manhunter on either side of him. "Did you really think she'd trust a scum like you," Batman rhetorically asked Faust.

"It's over, Faust. Come along quietly," Superman demanded.

"Never," Faust declared before tossing a flurry of mystical orbs in the League's direction, forcing the team to scatter before they could be hit.

As she watched the battle unfold before her, Hippolyta could honestly not believe her eyes for two reasons. The first one was for the obvious reason that these strange men held such great powers and abilities and were using them to help save her home, but the second reason was probably a bit more redundant at that point, and a bit incredulous to really think about, given the current situation. "You brought men here? To Themyscira," Hippolyta asked her daughter in disbelief.

It was at that point that Captain America was suddenly blasted over to where the two Amazons were, after being unable to keep ahead of Faust's barrage forever, and when he saw the two staring at him in surprise, Cap could only stare back for a minute before he stood up and gave a quick salute as he said, "Your majesty. It's a pleasure to meet you at last. Your daughter's told us quite a bit about you."

Hippolyta could only nod in response to the Captain's words before the star spangled hero jumped back into the fight with the rest of his teammates, just as Flash was suddenly knocked off his feet. Before Faust could try to finish the speedster off, Cap immediately rammed into the sorcerer with a hard shield bash that sent the sorcerer flying down to the floor, forcing him to drop the key as he went, which Batman and J'onn immediately prepared to try and retrieve. Such efforts did not go over so well, as the three were soon forced to either dodge or deflect another volley of magic orbs from Faust until one of the orbs struck a column that would have crushed Batman had Superman not managed to catch it just in time. When he saw that Faust was trying to make another escape attempt with the key, Batman immediately whipped out his grapple gun and fired the strong, hooked cable at the sorcerer, immediately tying Faust up before he could cross the threshold of the door.

It was at this point that Wonder Woman finally joined her teammates in the struggle by using her lasso to further ensnare Faust, but the sorcerer was quick to free himself by grasping the two lines and sending a powerful burst of lightning along the two lines right back to the heroes that were holding the ropes which had been tying him up. With Batman and Wonder Woman knocked back from the shock of his spell, Faust was easily able to shrug off the ropes and retrieve the key once again before preparing to make his exit, but he soon found it blocked once again when J'onn phased up from the floor in front of him and stood in his path like a gate guardian. Faust quickly started to back away, preparing to turn and run in the opposite direction, but that option was quickly removed as well when Flash and Superman blurred into his way as well, effectively surrounding him on all sides.

Faust was quickly becoming annoyed with the heroes' interference, so he quickly cast a quick spell as he tossed out a handful of seeds, easily giving rise to vicious, living vines that were quick to tie up Superman in their grasp before going after Flash. Thankfully, the speedster was quick enough to grab a fallen sword and start slicing away at the massive plants in an attempt to keep them off him, but it was only able to do him so much good. "Anybody got some weed killer," Flash asked as he continued to hack away at the vines until he was eventually trapped in them as well.

J'onn immediately made to try and grab Faust, thinking he could force the man to call off his spell, but the vines were quick to wrap him in their hold as well before he could even brush the man's shoulder. When they saw their three teammates were having so much trouble with their current problem, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Batman immediately charged in, with the Amazon grabbing a sword of her own before she had reached the overgrown weeds, and they were all immediately hacking and slashing away in an attempt to fight off the monstrous plants and free their teammates, never once noticing as Faust managed to slip past them and over to Hippolyta. Knowing what the sorcerer likely intended to do, Hippolyta quickly pulled out a dagger that she kept on her person at all times and attempted to slash at the madman, but Faust managed to avoid the queen's slashes until he eventually caught her arm in his grasp and shocked her into unconsciousness.

When she heard her mother's cry of pain, Diana's attention immediately diverted from the vines and over to the Amazon queen, just in time to see Faust take Hippolyta hostage. Seeing her mother in trouble was all that Diana needed to attempt to charge over and aid her, but the vines easily caught her by her arms and pulled her back, preventing her from doing so, so Diana was forced to watch as Faust cast another spell and vanished into thin air along with Hippolyta. At that point, the vines seemed to finally wither and lose strength, allowing the League to break free and make their way over to where the two had previously been, even though they knew that it was all for naught.

"She's gone," Flash gasped.

"And so is the key," Superman pointed out.

"No," Diana whispered in sorrow, somehow managing to keep herself from falling to her knees and crying as though she were a small child again at the sight of her mother being snatched away from her once more.

Seeing the distressed state of his Amazonian teammate immediately prompted Steve to place a hand on Diana's shoulder in comfort, earning him a small, sad smile in thanks for his efforts at trying to reassure her, while leading Diana to notice that he had been doing that quite a bit for her for some reason. She would not say that she did not like the gesture, but at the same time, she could not help but think that there was something more to it than a friendly gesture. Steve was not going to say that it was just a friendly gesture, mostly due to the fact that it just felt natural for him to do so for the princess, but right now, they had more important things to worry about. "They couldn't have gotten far," Steve reasoned. "If Faust does have the key…"

"Then there's only one place they could've gone," Diana finished, getting her teammates' attention as she turned away and motioned for them to follow her.

After pausing for a moment to collect a torch from the wall, Diana immediately led the League down a small passageway to the one doorway that she had hoped she would never have to open, and she soon found herself pressing the stone that would open said doorway, revealing the descending stairway that lay beyond it. The team immediately started going down those stairs, with Diana leading the way, until Flash caught a whiff of something that made him cringe a little in disgust. "Urgh, what's that smell," the speedster inquired.

"Don't ask," Diana and Steve both replied at the same time, getting the latter a small look of confusion from the former afterwards.

"I fought on various different battlefields in World War II. I'd know that particular scent anywhere," Steve reminded his friend.

Diana just nodded in response before looking forwards again, accepting that Steve more than likely did know the smell of death quite well, but also certain that he was not as familiar with this variety of it the entire time.

* * *

Say what you would about the Amazons, but never say that they are ones to give up, even in the face of certain defeat or capture, and Hippolyta was showing a great deal of evidence in regards to this fact as she struggled against the chains that held her down to a destroyed pillar while Faust approached the gate of Tartarus with the key. It was rather fitting that the gate was located here in a place that one would consider to be the ruins of old Themyscira, as it provided a fitting precursor as to what one would find beyond the gates in the pit of lost souls, but Faust clearly did not seem to care at all about such poetic warnings, or even the obvious ones that Hippolyta was crying out as she struggled to break free and stop the madman. "I beg you, stop this," Hippolyta pleaded for what was likely the umpteenth time now. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"I know exactly what I am doing," Faust snapped in response as he stood before the plinth that would allow him to use the key. "I've dreamt of this moment my whole life. Now, let's not keep our new lord waiting."

With that said, Faust easily slid the key into the opening in the top of the plinth and turned it clockwise to his current position, causing the ground to shake a little as the large gears that held the door's locks in place rumbled and groaned as they worked at unbarring the gateway to the damned world beyond it. Even after Faust had finished turning the key, the gears continued to groan and creak as they worked to open the seals on the door, causing the Earth around them to continue shaking, until finally, the bars and locks were removed, and the door to Tartarus started to slowly open, illuminating the cavern with the light of the deathly fires that raged behind it, even as a figure stepped through the flames and into the world beyond the door. When the figure's form finally materialized from the flames, one could see that he wore black and grey armor with spiked shoulder guards and armbands, a pair of black boots with a pair of spikes on the backs of each boot, and a black helmet that showed only a pair of demonic, yellow eyes through its visor, topped with a large pair of pointed, curved horns, emphasizing that the man that Hippolyta had once knew had truly become the devil itself.

"Free at last," the figure sighed in relief, as if he had finally received a fresh glass of water after spending so long in the driest of deserts, and when he did spoke, it was in an echoing, baritone voice that would send chills down the average man's spine.

Faust immediately fell to his knees before the armored man and bowed as he said, "Welcome Lord Hades. To honor you I've brought an offering."

Hades immediately turned to the offering that Faust had indicated, and his eyes immediately widened a little in surprise before he removed his helmet to reveal the face of a man with surprisingly tanned skin, long, shaggy black hair, and a similarly styled goatee before he remarked, "Do my eyes deceive me? Can it be my dearest Hippolyta here to greet her lord and master on his triumphant return from…Ah, but you know what I mean."

"Not a day has passed that I have been reminded of your treachery," Hippolyta sneered as she looked away from Hades, only to have her gaze brought back to him when the god of the dead suddenly placed a hand beneath her chin to pull her eyes back to him.

"And not a day has passed that I haven't longed for the ever sweet touch of living flesh again," Hades softly replied as he started to pull Hippolyta's face towards him in the hopes of stealing a kiss, only to be interrupted by his somewhat impatient servant.

"My lord, I've upheld my end of the bargain. I delivered your freedom and the Amazon queen. Now, I demand what you promised me," Faust reminded the treacherous, former Olympian.

"Ah yes. Ultimate knowledge," Hades nodded as he raised a hand coated in a fiery aura of magic to Faust's forehead. Faust could only grin in excitement at finally getting what he desired, but his mood soon changed along with his expression, as the minute that Hades' finger touched his forehead, he could only feel an indescribable agony racing through his body, while his form rapidly aged to the point where he was practically an old man. "Ultimately, pain and suffering are all man will ever know," Hades smirked as his former servant cried out in anguish over the torture that he had been inflicted with until Faust finally fell to the ground at Hades' feet.

Hades was so occupied with enjoying the show of Faust's agony, that he did not register someone approaching Hippolyta until the sound of something cutting the chains holding the Amazon queen to the pillar suddenly rang out, and the ruler of Tartarus immediately jerked his gaze upwards to see Wonder Woman slash apart the chains around Hippolyta's other wrist before the princess pulled her to safety as she cried out, "Hurry mother!"

"Hippolyta, you didn't tell me you had a daughter," Hades remarked in a mocking tone of false astonishment, almost as though he had just heard some rather grand news. He then reared back his head a little and spewed a massive stream of fire from his mouth that would have incinerated the two Amazons if they had not ducked for cover behind some rubble at the last moment, though it still set a good amount of the area ablaze with flames that Hades easily walked through until he was standing over the two once again. "I wonder if she's as loving as her mother."

"You'll have to settle for your imaginings, monster," Captain America shouted as he tossed his shield towards Hades, and since the ruler of Tartarus was not expecting such an attack, he was easily knocked a short distance away from the mother and daughter by the vibranium shield before it returned to the super soldier's arm. Cap then lunged forward and engaged Hades directly with a flurry of powerful blows both from his fists and his shield, until Hades eventually managed to swat the captain away with a flick of his wrist, sending Steve crashing into some of the nearby ruins.

When Hades turned to fully face his attacker, he had to pause for a moment before he eventually grinned and said, "Well, well, well. This day is just full of surprises. The mighty Captain Rogers is here as well. There is quite a number of people from the other side who would do anything to have you in their domain, Captain, and a number of my favorite demons actually gripe about you quite a bit."

"Well you can send them my regards after you return to the hell you came from," Captain America retorted as he braced himself for another attack, his shield already out in front of him in case Hades tried to blast him with the same fire attack he had tried to use before.

Thankfully, Steve did not have to worry about such things, as Superman swooped in to save his friend by delivering a powerful punch that knocked Hades off balance for a few moments, leaving him open to the combination of powerful punches that only a Kryptonian could deliver. Eventually though, Hades managed to regain himself and batted the last son of Krypton away as well, and since Superman was weak against magic, he knew that Hades' attack would likely leave more of a bruise than the rubble he crashed into would later. Hades' hand then shot up to catch a batarang that was spinning towards him, only for the projectile to beep a couple of times before it exploded in his hand. Knowing that his attack probably did not do much good, Batman immediately tossed another batarang in the direction of Hades, only for the Greek god of death to lazily bat it away like a fly and let it explode against a distant wall the minute he emerged from the blaze that had resulted from the first one's explosion. What Hades did not know, was that Batman's assault was mainly meant to serve as a distraction for J'onn and Flash's charge against the fallen Olympian, but Hades soon realized that when the Scarlet Speedster raced in and started throwing a number of high velocity punches at Hades that proved more disorienting and irritating than harmful. Eventually, Hades had quite enough of the speedster's assault, and he immediately let loose another stream of flames from his mouth that chased after Flash as he raced away from the attack, trying to stay ahead of it.

"Phew, get this guy a breath mint," Flash quipped as he put on as much speed as he could in an attempt to stay ahead of Hades' attack, right to the point where he was racing along the surface of walls and pillars. Hades was eventually forced to cease his assault on the Flash when J'onn dropped down on him from above with enough force to send the both into the ground, but the Martian's efforts only served to send him flying back out of the hole that he had created when Hades unleashed another burst of fire against J'onn, effectively hitting and dealing far more damage to the Martian Manhunter than it had against its previous target.

Seeing that her friends needed help, Diana immediately stood up and prepared to engage Hades as well, but before doing so she, quickly helped her mother to her feet and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, but Hades must be stopped," Hippolyta replied as she threw a hateful glare towards the god she had once been in love with, and before Diana could say anything, her mother had already grabbed the shield and sword from a fallen warrior's decayed, bony remains and charged forth to engage Hades along with the others. Knowing that it was not likely she would be able to talk her mother out fighting in this battle, or any battle really, Diana simply nodded and charged as well, with her own sword ready for battle.

When Hades rose up again from the hole that J'onn had bashed into, everyone easily saw the infuriated glare on his face that made it seem as though his eyes were burning with a fire of their own and shouted, "You dare to challenge a god?!"

The next thing anyone knew, the entire cavern was shaking as Hades raised his hands above him and caused the very earth itself to suddenly shoot up and seem like it was preparing to attack them as well. The real assault though, was much more terrifying, as Flash soon found out when several, bony hands sprung out of the ground and grabbed his legs, followed by the rest of the skeletal remains of reanimated, fallen soldiers in Greek armor as a vast number came to surround and practically dog-pile the speedster. Eventually, that small squad of undead warriors became a vast army that was easily surrounding the Justice League and Hippolyta, which was easily accompanied by several riding in chariots that were pulled by undead horses, while Hades stood over them all like a mighty general as he declared, "Behold the fate of all heroes."

The zombie warriors continued to rise up and strike out against their living opponents, right to the point where they were even literally coming out of the walls, but somehow, some of the Justice League managed to eventually shake, blast, or bash them off before they moved to help the ones who had not, allowing them to properly retaliate. Whether it be a rather incredible effort, like with Flash delivering a number of near-super-sonic punches or Batman's seemingly limitless supply of explosive batarangs, or what appeared to be a more subdued effort, like with how Superman would lay waste to the zombies through the use of his heat vision or with J'onn using his density shifting to simply let the undead warriors take themselves out, one could not deny that the League was more than capable of staving off these fallen warriors whose deaths were now being disgraced by Hades' use of them as his undead army, a fact that infuriated Captain America almost as much as it did the two Amazons as they each fought back with everything they had. Even so, there was still one glaring fact that none of them could ignore about the situation.

"They're endless," Diana cried as she cut down another zombie warrior before deflecting another's sword with her bracelet so that her mother could slice it down as well. "How can we overcome them?"

"You can't," Hades boasted as he continued to look on at the heroes' valiant, yet rather futile efforts to end his army. To emphasize his point, Hades fired off a massive fire ball that easily sent Batman and J'onn flying simply from the force of its explosion upon hitting the ground they had previously occupied, and another to knock Superman out of the fight while the destruction from the resulting shockwave managed to knock Flash off his feet. With a quick laugh of mockery, Hades prepared to fire off another fire ball, only to suddenly be cut off when a familiar red, white, and blue shield suddenly collided with his front once more, driving his attention to the mortal who had dared to strike him as the mighty shield returned to his arm.

"I've heard a lot of people say that many times before, Hades, and they've always ended up being proven wrong in the end, whether it be through my efforts or someone else's," Captain America retorted as he continued to fight back against the various zombie warriors with everything he had, whether it be with his shield or even without it.

"A shame that such things will not be true this time, Captain. You will all bow to me, mortals," Hades snarled as he prepared to blast the super soldier with another fire ball like the ones he had used against the other Leaguers. Before he could let it loose though, he was suddenly struck in the back by a large orb of magic, which proved to deal more damage to him than any of the other attacks that the heroes had thrown at him thus far, and when Steve looked to the source, he could not help but smirk a little at the irony when he saw that Faust had been the one to deliver it.

Wonder Woman's attention though, had been caught by something that was far more terrifying, as Steve quickly found out when he heard the princess cry out, "Great Hera!"

Turning to see what horror Diana's eyes had found, Steve soon found his own eyes widening in surprise and slight fear as he and the two Amazons witnessed Hades' human form melt away to be replaced by a being that had a head similar that of a wolf with pointed ears, beady red eyes, and a pair of horns atop its head, while three tongues extended forth from its wide, fanged mouth. "Now you see his true face," Hippolyta declared with fearful awe in her voice.

"And I thought I had seen some ugly things come out of HYDRA," Steve muttered to himself as Hades turned to blast Faust for his underhanded sneak attack from behind. The three then charged in to face the demon head on with everything they had, but Hades was easily able to swat away both Diana and Captain America before they could land a blow, and then caught Hippolyta's arm in his massive hand.

"Come, don't be shy, my love," Hades told Hippolyta as she tried to pull herself free as he reached his other hand out to her, only to suddenly find it ensnared by Diana's lasso before he could lay a finger on the Amazon queen. Hades barely even had to do anything when he pulled back on the lasso and sent Diana flying into Steve just as the super soldier was beginning to stand up again as well, knocking both heroes to the ground when he did. "I'll get to you and your little soldier friend when I'm finished with your mother," Hades told Diana as he tossed her lasso off of him and onto her.

Hippolyta was quick to take advantage of Hades' distraction, and immediately delivered a powerful kick to his head before flipping away once he had released her from his grasp. Once she was well away from her former love, Hippolyta looked to her daughter and cried out, "Diana, the key! It's our only hope!"

Diana and Captain America both quickly nodded to the blonde Amazon and dashed over to the key so that they could pull it out, but the minute that Diana had grasped the stone artifact, she was assaulted by an immense shock of magic lightning, and she could not help but cry out in pain as she tried to bear with the agony that she was being inflicted while trying to pull the key out. When her cries eventually became accompanied by another's, Diana managed to pry an eye open to see that Captain America had grabbed the key and started to pull as well, allowing himself to take on his own share of pain in an attempt to help pry the key out. Diana wanted to somehow push past the pain and tell Steve to let go and let her do this alone, but one look in the super soldier's eyes immediately told Diana that even if she could do so, Steve would not listen, because he was not going to let his teammate bear this agony alone. So instead of telling him to stop what he was doing, Diana simply nodded to her friend and began to pull with all her might until the two finally managed to return the key to where it was position when it was first inserted and then pry it out of the plinth.

"Diana! Captain! Destroy the key," Hippolyta shouted when she saw that the two had managed to turn the lock back into its original position and remove the key.

Seeing this, Hades immediately slapped Hippolyta aside, knocking her unconscious for the moment and raced towards the two, hoping against hope that he would manage to reach the two heroes before they did as Hippolyta had commanded, but such hopes were in vain as Diana raised the key above her head before tossing it down to the ground as hard as she could while shouting, "Back to the pit, you monster!"

The minute that the key had shattered against the ground, an explosion of magic erupted forth and raced into the portal to Tartarus, causing a powerful wind to start sucking everything nearby into it, and forcing everyone who could to try and find something to hold onto so that they were not pulled in. Thankfully, the other members of the League had recovered enough to secure themselves so that they were not sucked in, leaving Steve to make sure that Diana was not pulled into the realm of the dead by pulling her down so that she was next to him on the opposite side of the door to the plinth that the key had previously been in. Sadly, Faust was unable to save himself, as his aged form soon withered away into dust, until all that remained of him was his robes, and since Hippolyta was still unconscious, she was unable to do anything to keep from being thrown into Hades' grasp by that same wind, which eventually managed to pry Hades free from the ground he had dug his claws into, thanks in no small part to the remains of a broken pillar.

When she saw her mother being pulled into Tartarus along with Hades, Diana immediately shot up and grabbed her mother's arm so that she could keep her from being pulled in as well, but sadly, Hades had somehow managed to get a hold on Hippolyta's unconscious form too, making it quite clear that if he was going to be forced back into Tartarus, he was determined to make sure he would not be going alone. Once Hades had managed to pull himself far enough up to her, Diana immediately lashed out with a powerful kick that knocked the fallen Olympian off of her mother and back into Tartarus, allowing her to pull her mother over her shoulders as she started to climb out before the gates could close them both in. Just when she was reaching the doors though, it started to seem like they would be trapped in Tartarus along with Hades, until a familiar shield suddenly found its way in between the doors, while its owner grabbed Diana's arm and started pulling her out with all of his might.

"Don't worry, I've got you," Captain America shouted as he pulled the two Amazons to safety, and Diana could not help but beam in thanks to her friend as he managed to help her pull both herself and her mother to the side of the gates of Tartarus that they belonged on, only dislodging his shield from said gates once they were safely on the other side.

Once the gates had closed, the wind that was pulling everything into the Pit of Lost Souls immediately died down and the locks that barricaded the door closed slid back into place, leaving Diana to do what she could to wake her mother from her unconscious state while the rest of the League tried to catch their breath. When Hippolyta finally awoke, she could not help but ask with a slight groan, "He's gone?"

"That he is, your majesty," Captain America panted with a tired smile while Diana simply nodded in relief.

"What did you ever see in him," Diana finally asked after another minute, showing just how bewildered she was by the fact that her mother had ever been in love with the beast that they had just defeated.

"Ancient history," Hippolyta waved off as she sat up and placed a hand to her head. "Thank Athena it's finally over."

"Is it? What about our Amazon sisters," Diana asked, reminding everyone of that one problem that still remained.

* * *

Though everyone was still tired from the battle against Hades, their rush back out of the temple to see if any of the other Amazons had been restored from their petrified state was not slowed in the slightest, just as their dismay at seeing that every one of Themyscria's people still frozen in stone was no less saddening for anyone. "Is there nothing we can do for them," J'onn eventually asked after a minute.

It was at that point that Flash suddenly remembered the medallion that he had swiped from Faust, and he quickly pulled it out for everyone to see as he stated, "I still have this snake-headed doohickey."

"But Faust was the only one who knew the spell," Captain America pointed out. "How's that really going to help us?"

"I've got a friend over in Star City who's kind of an expert on dealing with these kinds of things, and Bats and Supes both know a couple of magic experts as well. Maybe one of them will know…YEOW," Flash started to say before he cried out in slight pain and dropped the medallion when it suddenly glowed a bit along with the rising sun.

Eventually, the medallion's glow became so intense that everyone was forced to shield their eyes until it finally subsided with a small explosion, and when she opened her eyes again, Diana immediately gasped in awe and said, "Look!"

When they did, everyone's eyes were widening in surprise when they saw every Amazon in sight returning to normal and then moaning a little in weariness and disorientation after being frozen as statues for so long, and while Diana and Hippolyta could only smile in relief, it still left one question unanswered. "But how," Flash finally whispered.

"Faust's enchantment could only last as long as he willed it," Batman reasoned.

"So now that he's gone, the spell is broken," Diana finished before she turned to wrap her mother in a tight, relieved hug. "It's a miracle!"

"Athena be praised," Hippolyta immediately agreed as she returned her daughter's hug in equal relief, and every member of the League soon found themselves smiling in equal agreement, even Batman, who was giving the smallest of hidden smiles as well.

* * *

Later that day when the sun was high in the sky, the citizens of Themyscira had managed to repair what damage to their home that they could before Hippolyta called her royal guard together so that she could honor the members of the League for what their part in saving their home, with Diana right at her side as they did. In all honesty, while some of the League was a bit used to such treatment as thanks for their efforts in saving lives, others were still a bit uncomfortable for various reasons, but none of them were about to deny any honor that being bestowed upon them by an island full of women that were likely just as strong as Diana was. Of course, they were also doing it to be polite as well.

"And for your brave assistance against the sorcerer, Faust, and the mad god, Hades, you have earned our eternal gratitude," Hippolyta announced to the heroes of the Justice League.

"Did you hear that? Eternal gratitude," Flash quietly boasted a bit to one of the nearby guards. "After she hands out the medals, how about you and me taking a private tour of paradise?"

While Steve would normally just smile a little at Flash's Casanova act, knowing that Barry would never really cheat on Iris like that, he still had to mentally groan a little at how the speedster was doing so with someone who had more than likely been raised to believe that all men were evil, hateful beings, which was only reinforced by the small glare that the guard was throwing Flash's way in response to his flirting. "She wants me," Flash boasted to J'onn.

"Indeed," the Martian sarcastically replied, making Steve think that J'onn was probably rolling his eyes in his mind at Flash's supposed cluelessness.

"Probably not a good idea to encourage him in any way right now, J'onn," Captain America warned as he diverted the two's attention back to Hippolyta as she continued her speech.

"Before you leave, please accept these royal offerings," Hippolyta offered the heroes as Diana and four other Amazons stepped forward to present each of the five male Leaguers with a golden wreath of their own, which all but Batman accepted with a polite smile. "You are all, truly heroes."

"Thank you, your majesty," Superman said on behalf of his team as he gave a polite bow to the Amazon queen, while the others pocketed their wreathes for the moment.

Hippolyta nodded in response to the Man of Steel, and she then turned to her daughter. "Diana, princess of Themyscira, stand forth," Hippolyta commanded, and Diana did not hesitate to do so with a bow of her own. "As your mother, I am overjoyed that you have finally returned to us…but as your queen, I am obliged to uphold the law of Themyscira, and in bringing these outsiders to our island, you have broken our most sacred law. This cannot be overlooked."

While the first part of what Hippolyta was saying had brought a joyful smile to Diana's face, the latter part immediately washed away all good feelings that she and her friends had, but only Diana knew just how severe likely the consequences were to be. Still, she could not help herself as she stepped forward a little and began to protest, "But Mother…"

Hippolyta immediately raised a hand to signal for silence, leading Diana to quickly fall quiet so that the queen could continue. "Diana, I have no choice," Hippolyta stated, her voice showing that she was just as heartbroken and sad about this as her daughter was. "It is with a heavy heart that I must exile you from Themyscira."

"What," nearly every member of the League gasped, but only one of them was brave enough to immediately press further.

"You can't do that! She risked her butt to save all of you! She…," Flash tried to protest in an attempt to help his friend, but his attempts were quickly silenced when the Amazonian guards suddenly raised their spears towards him, threateningly.

Superman was not any happier about this than Flash was, and since he knew the speedster had a point, he could not help but speak up as well. "Please, she did this because she loves you. You can't punish her for that," the Man of Steel reasoned.

"No, Mother's right," Diana suddenly said, shocking each of her friends and teammates. "I did break the law, and I humbly accept your judgment."

"That doesn't make it right though," Steve argued as he stepped forward, ignoring the various spears that moved from pointing at Flash to point at him as he did. "Please, there must be something you can do to allow her to make things right."

Hippolyta seemed to regard the captain for a moment, almost as though she were contemplating his words, but eventually she had to hang her head in sadness and say, "I wish there were, but I'm afraid that there is no other way."

Seeing just how upset Hippolyta was, Steve immediately stood down, knowing that it would be wrong for him to push the matter anymore than it already had been, leaving Diana to say a few words to her mother before she turned to depart. "The fates were against us, Mother. Goodbye," Diana said as she just barely managed to keep her voice even and hold back the tears that were already starting to fall until she turned to march towards the Javelin as proudly as she could while her sisters presented arms to herald her departure.

While most of the other Leaguers knew that there was nothing more that could be said or done in regards to the situation each immediately and turned to follow their friend as the best show of support they could offer her at the moment, Flash was still not willing to let it go just yet. "That's it," Flash demanded. "You're just going to walk away? This is so bogus!"

Flash's protest immediately died down when Batman grabbed the speedster's arm and pulled him over so he could whisper in warning, "Don't make this harder than it already is."

At that point, Flash finally recognized what the others had and just nodded to the Dark Knight before joining their friends in their departure as well. Before he got too far, Steve suddenly found himself held back by none other than Hippolyta herself, as she had allowed the League to go a fair distance before she came over to him in as much of a sedated yet still fast pace as she could manage. "Please look after her," Hippolyta quietly begged the super soldier. "I can tell you and your friends care a great deal for her, and she holds you in high regards. The Amazons may be my people, but Diana is still my eldest child."

Steve did not need to see how desperate and hurt the queen was by all of this to know what his answer would be, but that did make it all the more easier for him to voice his response as quickly as he did. "You have my word as a soldier, a hero, and as a human being, your majesty. I'll do everything I can to help your daughter through this."

Hippolyta immediately nodded in response and gave the super soldier a thankful bow of her own before finally letting him depart. When he reached the others, he saw that Diana had to pause for a minute at the base of the Javelin's boarding ramp, clearly letting a few tears fall for a moment so that she could better hold it in until she was alone in her room on the Watchtower before she finally boarded the ship with the others right behind her, all of them showing just how upset they were by their friend's new situation in their expressions. Even Batman's face seemed to hold a far deeper scowl than normal as he boarded the ship. Once they were all seated with J'onn manning the controls, the League immediately took off and departed back for the world outside of Themyscira, with only Captain America noticing Hippolyta watching their departure in sadness as they did.

After a few tense minutes of silence, Superman eventually threw a small, mischievous look in Steve's direction before he whispered, "So what do you think the rest of us going to be doing for Diana?"

"What do you mean," Steve asked in clear confusion, not quite understanding what the Man of Steel was asking.

Superman simply pointed to his ears as a reminder of the fact that his super hearing would have easily allowed him to hear the conversation Steve had with Hippolyta before they left as he said, "I'm just wondering if you're going to be doing everything you can to help her through this, then what will we have to do?"

"What're you talking about? I said that we would all help her through this," Steve replied once he figured out what Clark was talking about.

"No, you said, ' _I_ will do everything _I_ can to help your daughter'," Superman reminded him. "Is there something you want to tell us, Steve?"

"Don't you have a cat to pull out of a tree somewhere or something," Steve pointedly asked as he turned away from his teammate in an attempt to end the conversation. He did manage to do so, but he knew that Superman was still giving him the exact same smile regardless of the fact. Still, it did not change the fact that Diana was really going to need them in the trials that were soon to come.

* * *

 ** _AN: So yeah, that all happened, and a few things definitely changed in comparison to the original version, plus a made a small reference to a certain other MARVEL hero earlier during that whole thing at the New York museum, in case you didn't notice, while also showing that Cap and Diana's relationship seems to be growing stronger at the same time. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've made it clear just with the story info that those two are this story's main pairing, but you know, I'm trying to make it develop as smoothly as possible and not just have them jump right into things._**

 ** _Moving on, yeah, I had to throw that last bit between Cap and Hippolyta in, along with Superman's subsequent teasing. I know that the big guy can be a little dense in regards to such things, but I'd like to think that even he's not dense enough to pick up on the slightly hidden meaning behind Cap's slight slip of the tongue there._**

 ** _Now next time is actually going to be taking place during the whole War World adventure that Superman, J'onn, Lantern, and Hawkgirl found themselves in, but we will not be going into detail on that. Instead, it will allow us to show a little more of the MARVEL side of this story by leading us on an adventure back home on good old Earth. For more information, move Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _In the direct aftermath of her banishment, Diana finds herself spending some time in New York along with Steve as a way to help her adjust to her new situation, but what was meant to be a quiet time for her quickly turns into a time that has the two Leaguers dealing with some of the problems that New York deals with. Can the two handle themselves against this local threat, or will it take a local, friendly neighborhood hero to help them stop the criminals they are chasing down? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 7: Welcome to New York** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	7. Welcome to New York

_**AN: Hey guys, we are back with another chapter of Justice Marvel, and is both something of an aftermath to the last chapter while simultaneously taking place during the War World adventure that Superman, J'onn, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl were off on, and not only will it be introducing this story's version of a certain MARVEL hero, but also one of his regular villains as well, and a few other individuals from his side of the MARVEL universe.**_

 _ **Joker: Can we just get on with it, already? It's not like you've got some reviews to answer or anything.**_

 ** _AN: [says nothing beyond just hitting a control to send Joker catapulting into space]_**

 ** _Joker: BUT I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING! [disappears from view as nothing more than a star as his cries echo]_**

 ** _AN: As much as I'd hate to admit it, the crazy clown does have a point. I know it's only been a couple of weeks and all, but come on guys, leave something of a review for this thing. It's how I know whether I'm doing good or bad with this story, and that especially holds true in the case of this chapter, because I will want your opinions on it._**

 ** _With that said, onto the story with you lot. It's time for a certain hero to swing into action._**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Welcome to New York**

The League had flown straight back to the Watchtower after they left Themyscira, and the minute that the Javelin had landed in the hangar, Diana barely said more than three words before she disappeared into her room. Knowing that the now exiled princess likely just needed some time to herself, no one really said or did anything in response to her doing so, but they were all still worried about her. It was not until after Diana ended up not coming out of her room anymore than necessary for a few days that the rest of the League began to feel a bit concerned, right to the point where Superman thought it would likely be a good idea to let her get away from the hero work for a while and spend some time in his hometown of Smallville. Of course, Steve quickly dismissed that idea, as he believed that the peace and quiet of the small farm town would probably be a little too much of a reminder of home for Diana, and then suggested that she stay with him in New York for a while, thinking that the Big Apple would be the perfect place to really help Diana at least get her mind off things for a little while. When no one argued with the super soldier, Steve wasted little time in going to Diana's room on the station and suggesting the idea to her as well, and despite the fact that she was clearly still a bit upset of her exile, she was actually rather happy to agree.

After somehow managing to evade any sort of jokes that Flash would have made in regards to Steve letting their Amazon teammate live with him for a short while, the two soon found themselves in Steve' apartment in Brooklyn as Diana settled into the guest room of the apartment. When Stark had first showed Steve the apartment even had a guest room, Steve could not help but feel like it had been a little much at the time, but now, he was very glad to have it, as it meant that Diana would have a comfortable place to sleep without feeling like she was kicking him out of his own room, because they both knew full well that Steve would have done so in a heartbeat if he had to. Though the change of scenery was indeed welcoming as opposed to the cold, almost lifeless kind that the Watchtower provided, mostly due to the fact that the station was meant to be more of a headquarters than a full-time home for anyone in general, it did not seem to do much for improving Diana's mood. She was not spending all of her time in the guest room or anything, but she rarely ever seemed to venture out of the apartment more than necessary, and that really seemed like a bit of a waste to Steve.

After a week of that had gone by, Steve figured that he had waited long enough before deciding that his friend would need a small push. So, while the two were having a small breakfast of scrambled eggs and milk, Steve looked over to the princess and said, "So Diana, do you plan on doing anything in the city today?"

"Not really," Diana mumbled as she scooped some eggs up with her fork.

Steve had been expecting that answer, and immediately replied, "Alright, then you can help me out with a small errand for Stark."

"Wait, what," Diana questioned as she diverted her attention from her food and directly onto the super soldier.

"Well I just figured that since you didn't have any plans that you wouldn't mind lending me a hand with my work today," Steve shrugged in easy admittance. "Plus, it would allow you to get out into the city, see what New York has to offer, and afterwards, we could always just do whatever you think you might enjoy."

"I…I don't know," Diana said quietly as she looked away in slight sadness. "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the best company right now, to be honest."

"Well it's not like any of the others will be stopping by today. Superman, J'onn, and Hawkgirl are all off in space, Green Lantern's doing something with the rest of his corps, Batman's…well doing whatever he always does in Gotham, and I have no idea what Flash is doing, but I'm pretty sure it involves either a crime in Central City or whatever girl has caught his eye the most recently," Steve pointed out with a slight joking tone at the end. He was happy to see that the last bit of his statement had actually succeeded in getting Diana to at least smile in a way that was not as sad as her smiles had been for the past week, but Steve knew that would not be enough to convince her to come along on his errand, so immediately pressed on. "I know what you're going through right now is hard Diana, believe me, but you can't just keep yourself locked up indoors all the time aside from when we need you on a mission. You need to get out there and really experience what it is we're protecting for yourself sometimes, plus we're in New York City, one of the most famous cities in the world. You can't tell me that you're not a little curious about what you can find here. Trust me, it will do you some good in adjusting."

Diana wanted to argue with Steve's point and say that she was fine just staying in, but she knew that he was right in what he said. She had been taking advantage of Steve's patience and hospitality a little for the past week, and while simply just staying in was preferred to going out and seeing a number of reminders regarding her current situation, she knew that doing so would just be running away from the problem. Exiled or not, she was still the princess of the Amazons, damn it, and she would not run from her problems like a coward. So, she took a quick minute to steel her resolve and smiled a little at Steve as she nodded, "Alright, sure. I guess it couldn't hurt to see just what sort of other things man's world has to offer. Plus, it would be nice to hear a bit more about it from someone other than Flash for once."

Steve could not help but laugh a little at that last remark, as Barry had been doing quite a bit in showing Diana some things about the world outside Themyscira since they first met, and given the scarlet speedster's approach to such things, it would be very easy to understand why it would start to wear on someone after a little while. With their plans now made, the two made to quickly finished their breakfast so that they could carry on with their day, but Steve knew that there was one other thing that they would have to take care of before they went out. He was just thankful that Miss Potts was kind enough to help him with it the other day in preparation for this.

* * *

"Are you sure this is alright," Diana asked as she tugged a bit on the sleeve of the blue jacket she was now wearing while following Steve down to his motorcycle. Since the princess would be going out, Steve had figured it would be a good idea for her to dress in something other than her Wonder Woman outfit, and thankfully, Stark's personal assistant and close friend, Pepper Potts had been able to help him find some things for Diana to wear, though Steve was not sure if he should ask how the redhead had managed to get her hands on clothes that were just the right size for Diana. That was why Diana was now dressed in white jeans, a blue jacket, and a white t-shirt while her bracelets were concealed underneath the jacket's sleeves, and the rest of her outfit was kept in a bag like the one Steve was carrying his Captain America suit in.

Somehow, the super soldier managed to keep from rolling his eyes, as Diana had been worrying about how she looked in the civilian attire ever since she stepped out of her room wearing it, and simply placed his bag and shield on one side of his motorcycle as he said, "Relax Diana, you look good."

Diana felt her cheeks grow a little warm at hearing Steve say that for a reason that she could not really explain, and simply nodded in thanks before handing Steve the bag containing the rest of her costume so he could strap it onto the other side of his bike. When Steve had finished doing so, he reached into a compartment on the bike and pulled out a spare helmet for Diana, which made the Amazon raise a questioning eyebrow as she asked, "Is that really necessary? I doubt that I would injure myself too greatly if we were in some form of accident."

"Well it's the law, and personally, I'd rather not take that chance," Steve admitted as he placed the helmet in Diana's hands before strapping on his own. Diana had to nod in acceptance of this and followed Steve's lead in placing on the headwear he had handed to her before they both climbed onto the motorcycle and raced out of the parking garage that it was parked in.

Diana was actually a bit hesitant about riding on such a vehicle though, as she had never ridden on any vehicles other than the Javelin up until now, but Steve had assured her that it was not that much different from riding a horse, just a bit faster and a little more smooth, and Diana was actually surprised to see that he was right in a way. The rush of the wind blowing through her hair that was not concealed under the helmet was much like how it was whenever she went riding on Themyscira, and she could not help but smile a little at the speed they were currently going as Steve wove through traffic with well-practiced ease. At that point, the only thing Diana had to be nervous about was holding onto Steve as they went so that she was certain she could not fall off. Steve had made it clear that he did not mind her holding on to him if she wanted to, but there was just something about holding her arms around the super soldier from behind that made Diana's stomach seem to gain a slight tingling while her heartbeat seemed to speed up a little.

Eventually, Diana could not help but notice that the drive over to Stark International seemed to be taking a bit longer than she thought it would, which quickly prompted her to ask why they had not arrived yet. Steve was glad that she could not see his face at the moment, because he was sure he would not have been able to hide his smile as he said, "Well I thought we could take a more scenic route."

Diana raised a confused eyebrow in response to this, but after glancing around her, she could see why Steve would consider this a more scenic route. It was not her first time in a big city like New York of course, having been in places like Metropolis a few times now, but it was the first time she had ever traveled through a city at such speeds without flying, and from down on the ground, she could see why Steve would consider this a more scenic route. There was not a building as far as the eye could see that did not seem to reach the heavens from where they were, and the way that the different areas of New York seemed to blend together almost seamlessly was something that she could not help but admire a little. Eventually, the two found themselves passing through Times Square, and Diana's awestruck gaze immediately grew in size as she looked around the area full of commercial ads that climbed up the buildings around them and people who were busily going about their days at a steady walking pace. It all brought a bit of an excited smile to Diana's face while making her wonder why she had not come here sooner even with everything that the League dealt with on a nearly daily basis.

Of course, the minute that Diana had started wondering such things, she quickly received her answer when one of the nearby stores suddenly exploded, forcing Steve to bring the bike to a screeching halt before they were caught up in the shockwave and fires like the vehicles ahead of them had been. What followed next was a sight unlike anything the two had seen before, because before the flames subsided, a rather massive figure came bursting out with a mad cackle, and the mere appearance of him would make anyone pause even if they did fight supervillains on a near daily basis. The individual was obviously a man, but even from a distance one could tell that he could easily tower over Superman with ease, both in height and in mass, and his eyes were a dark, evil red color, while his ears were pointed and his skin was a sickly yellow color. He was dressed in an orange and blue suit that covered most of his body, aside from some small areas of his arms and legs, while dark orange boots adorned his feet along with similarly colored gauntlets that covered all of his hands and lower arms. The thing about this beast that was probably the most terrifying was the set of orange bat-like wings that extended out of his back, but after taking a closer look, one could tell that they were not actual wings, but rather a part of the suit he wore to make him capable of flight.

"Great Hera, what is that thing," Diana gasped in honest surprise.

"Don't know, but I doubt that it's here to enjoy the tourist hot-spots," Steve replied as he grabbed his shield from where he had stored it on the side of his bike and then pulled out his usual helmet, indicating what he planned to do. Diana immediately nodded to her friend and quickly grabbed her lasso from her own bag and the two quickly went to work.

The two were a bit upset about having their peaceful day interrupted, and they made sure that this cackling, monstrous lunatic knew that when Cap tossed his shield right into the monster-man's face just before Diana managed to get her lasso around one of his large arms. The monster-man immediately looked to the direction of his attackers and immediately gave a wide grin before he grabbed onto Diana's lasso and released a powerful shock of electricity that ultimately caused the Amazon to cry out in pain before she was forced to release her hold on the indestructible rope as she dropped from the air. Thankfully, Captain America managed to catch her before she landed on the ground, for which Diana was quite thankful, and the two then immediately prepared to charge the massive man as the clear psycho shouted, "Not quite who I was hoping to run into, but I guess this would've been boring either way if some would-be hero didn't try to stop me. Or should I say two would-be heroes."

The two's charge was quickly changed into a dive for cover as the monster-man unleashed a flurry of electric blasts from his gloves along with a storm of fireballs that seem to come from both his hands and his mouth, and it was not long before the destruction started moving to the surrounding area, endangering civilians that had not managed to get away in time. Thinking quickly, Cap tossed his shield into the monster-man once more, grabbing his attention and giving Diana time to move and help out anyone that she could, whether it be by moving some rubble that had trapped some kids, or really just flying a couple to safety just before they were crushed. Eventually though, things got to the point where Captain America had to help out with rescuing civilians, and thus, the monstrous being was able to make his escape with a mad cackle echoing throughout the city, leaving the two Leaguers to immediately promise that they would get him soon enough.

* * *

"Well, not quite what I had in mind for our little outing today," Steve lightly joked with a shrug as he and Diana finished helping out with clearing the debris that had resulted from the battle that had just taken place. While the two had been assured that a group of specialists would be able to deal with such things, they just did not feel right letting others clean up something that they had a bit of a hand in and were quick to help out as best as they could.

Diana had to smile in good humor for Captain America's attempt at lightening the mood, but she found herself cut off from saying anything when another female voice said, "I'm sure that it wasn't." The two immediately turned to see a woman with brown hair that was tied back in a pony tail, and dressed in a typical detective's outfit approaching them, before she finally showed them her badge and said, "I'm Police Captain Carlie Cooper of the NYPD."

"Steve Rogers, and this is Diana," the captain replied as he exchanged a handshake with the police captain.

"Better known as Captain America and Wonder Woman. Yeah, I kinda figured that out for myself," Carlie nodded in recognition. "Just wanted to say thanks for doing what you could to help out with that mess that the Hobgoblin tried to make earlier."

"The what," Diana asked.

"The Hobgoblin," Carlie repeated. She then noticed the confused expressions that she was getting from the two heroes and said, "You two haven't been in New York that long have you?"

"I was just thawed out of ice almost a month ago, and in that time, I've been trekking all over the world or just patrolling Brooklyn, so I can't really say that I have been, personally," Steve admitted with a shrug. "Diana actually just arrived in the city a week ago, so she's really more of a New York newbie than I am."

"I figured as much," Carlie nodded in understanding. "The Hobgoblin is a local supervillain that some are thinking is possibly a successor to the mysterious Green Goblin, but that's really just a rumor out on the street and in the department. Apparently, he infused himself with a special serum that mutated him into…well, I'm sure you saw the results for yourselves. Add in the fact that he's now wearing some of the Green Goblin's old armor with a few upgrades, along with the fact that he seems to have a few abilities the original Goblin didn't have, and you can see why we consider him to be a very dangerous individual."

"Do you know who this Hobgoblin is," Diana asked.

"No, and we haven't even had one hint of the slightest lead in finding out who the man under the monster is," Carlie admitted. "We have had just as much success tracking him down too, which is rather surprising considering that this guy is pretty hard to miss out in the open, which suggests that he can either change from his goblin form to human form at will, he can only stay as such for a short time, or he's just really good at hiding. I'm not willing to bet on that last one though, considering how many heists he's been a part of."

"Where exactly have you been getting the information on Hobgoblin, anyway," Steve inquired, finding it a little strange that the police captain would know so much about someone who was supposedly a successor to a mystery criminal.

"A friendly yet rather annoying source that has tangled with both Goblins on more than one occasion," Carlie cryptically answered.

The two Leaguers shared a small look between them, clearly showing that they were both confused and a bit curious about Carlie's answer, before Diana looked back to the police captain and asked, "Do you have some way of contacting this source so we can speak to him? If this Hobgoblin is so dangerous, then we need to bring him in as soon as possible."

Carlie had to let out a humorless chuckle in response to that, much to the two's surprise, before she revealed, "If I know this particular source, he's already looking into that, assuming he's not caught up in anything else at the moment, and more importantly, you won't be able to find him. If anything, he's more likely to find and get in touch with you."

The two Leaguers exchanged a small glance of confusion between them once again before they both nodded to the police captain and prepared to leave, promising that they would do what they could to help out with the situation, which led Carlie to say, "I'm pretty sure most people don't spend their dates hunting criminals, you know. Just my personal opinion."

That caused both Steve and Diana to freeze in shock for a minute before Diana spun around and said, "We-we're not on a date."

"We're not even dating at all, really," Steve sputtered. "Not that it would be a bad thing."

"Which it's not, but we're not, so…"

Carlie had to smile a little at the two heroes' spluttering until she finally raised her hands in defeat, told them to relax, and let them leave, but not without rolling her eyes a little as she muttered something about people being in denial as soon as their backs were turned. After waiting a few minutes though, Carlie moved off to the side and pulled out her cell phone to dial a specific number that the source she mentioned had given to her. She had to wait a minute or so, until after the third ring, someone finally answered, and she immediately said, "Hey, it's Carlie. Hobgoblin was just in Times Square, and he went a few rounds with two members of the Justice League before he got away. Namely, Captain America and Wonder Woman. They're looking for him now, so I think you might want to let our mutual, insect friend know he should have a chat with them if there's a chance you could help each other."

 _"Sure thing, Carlie,"_ the person on the other end replied. _"But just for the record, spiders are arachnids."_

* * *

While a common thug grunted in pain, Diana barely suppressed a growl of frustration. This was now the seventh street thug that she and Captain America had spoken to since they had changed into their suits and started looking for any information they could find on Hobgoblin and his whereabouts, and they had come up with even less than what Captain Cooper had already told them, so needless to say, it was starting to get on the exiled princess's nerves. That is not to say that they were not doing some good while hunting for the criminal, seeing as the crooks they were questioning were left to be arrested by the cops, but the fact that they did not get any information that they needed was overshadowing that small good fact.

"How are we supposed to find this goblin if no one has anything to tell us we don't already know," Diana asked Steve as she dusted her hands off.

Steve could understand why Diana was so frustrated, seeing as he was starting to get a little annoyed as well, but he was at least glad that she was now focused on something other than her current status as an exile from her home. Before he could answer though, a new, somewhat young voice suddenly replied in his place, saying, "Well for starters, you could try talking to the right people, which you clearly have not been doing since your chat with Carlie."

Wonder Woman and Captain America were both quickly on their guard as they started scanning their surroundings for the source of the voice, only to find nothing in the area. This did not fool them though, because aside from hearing said voice, they could both tell that someone was there, and that was all the reasoning Diana needed to call out, "Whoever's out there, show yourself!"

"Well see, the thing is I would, but I just want to clarify something real quick," the same voice responded. "First off, if I do come out, are you guys going to try and beat me up? I'm asking because everyone I meet for the first time tends to do that. Sure, most of them are bad guys or crooks, but there are a few superheroes that have done that too. The first time I met that Green Arrow guy over in Star City, he tried to shoot me with a bunch of arrows, my buddy from Westchester, he tried to gut me, and if I were to ever venture over to Gotham, or if said city's heroes ever came here, I'm pretty sure that Batman would try to beat me up too. I'm not sure if the same would apply to Superman, you know, cause he's the big blue boy scout and all, but I'm about ninety percent sure that he would try to beat me up as well, which is something I would like to avoid at all costs, thank you."

The two had to exchange curious glances at the mysterious individual's little babble just now, wondering if he was just talking as a way to hide his nerves or if he just seemed to like hearing himself talk like Flash occasionally seemed to, but Steve was able to shake it off when he remembered something that the person had said when they first heard his voice, and he quickly called out, "I'm guessing that you're the mysterious source that Captain Cooper told us about." When he received only silence in reply, he went on to add, "We're not going to hurt you if you really want to help. We'd just rather see who we're talking to before we go any further."

"Well why didn't you say so, Cap? It's okay if I call you Cap, right," the voice asked. When Steve said nothing in reply, the voice went on to add, "Anyways, if you want to see me, then you can do what most people don't normally seem to do these days even with a bunch of guys flying all around, and look up."

When the two did as suggested, they found their eyes quickly settling on a figure that was perched on the side of a nearby wall with nothing more than his bare hands. In addition to this, the figure was wearing a red and blue suit that was just dark enough to be able to have some semblance of allowing him to hide in the shadows when stealth was necessary, yet still bright enough for people to easily spot him in the right light. The red portions of his suit had a series of web patterns over them, and a large, black spider symbol could be seen on the front of his chest, with the lower legs of the spider extending down to the middle of his stomach, while his full face mask had large, very expressive, white eyes. While Diana was in slight awe of such a person, each of the factors about the man perched on a wall easily allowed Captain America to identify this man as New York's friendly neighborhood, local hero.

"Spider-Man," Captain America identified aloud for everyone's sake.

"I get that reaction a lot," Spider-Man shrugged as he crawled down the side of the building before flipping himself around so that, while he was still sitting on the wall, he was now doing so in an upright position as opposed to being somewhat upside down while he was talking with the two.

At this point, Diana managed to shake herself out of her shock and quickly schooled her features again before she asked, "How'd you even find us?"

"I followed the trail of recently captured crooks from the last few hours since Carlie called me and a mutual friend of mine," Spider-Man revealed as he glanced over to the recently knocked out crook. "Good call on talking to the street crooks and all, but you're asking the wrong ones. All guys like him are going to tell you is the common knowledge and rumors that are flying around on the street."

"Sounds like you've been doing this for a while," Captain America noted, while feeling a bit insulted that this guy who sounded as though he were a kid was critiquing him and Wonder Woman like they were amateurs.

"Well, I _have_ been Spider-Man since I was fifteen, Cap, so I'd like to think I know a thing or two," Spider-Man shrugged in a somewhat modest manner.

"And how old are you now," Wonder Woman inquired.

Spider-Man just waved his finger before replying, "Ah, ah, ah. Nice try, but I know that even revealing the simplest of things like age would allow someone to figure out my secret identity, even if there are a few hundred guys of similar age in New York."

The two Leaguers could not help but give a small amount of mental praise to Spider-Man, as he showed that he was very careful in guarding his secret identity, but they would discuss that topic a little more later on, and Steve quickly moved to get them back on track as he asked, "So do you know who we can talk to?"

"I might, but that actually depends on one crucial detail," Spider-Man nodded.

"Which would be what, exactly," Diana inquired, hoping that she would get a serious answer this time.

"On whether or not the guy I have in mind is still in his usual hangout," Spider-Man revealed before he tapped his left wrist, which had a red watch on it that neither of the two had noticed until now. "Silk, is our old pal Blackie still at the same old hangout?"

 _"Yes he is, Tiger, and I thought we agreed that I was going to be called Spider-Girl or Madame Web,"_ a distinctly female voice replied.

"One, Madame Web is taken, and two, I distinctly remember saying that I was never going to call you Spider-Girl. Ever," Spider-Man retorted. "That would imply that I have a sidekick, and last I checked, not only do you not have spider-powers, you also don't have a costume or do stuff out here in the city like I do. And above all, Spider-Man does not have a sidekick."

 _"Fine, fine,"_ the woman on the other end replied. _"Then how about, Charlotte?"_

"Charlotte," Spider-Man inquired, clearly just as confused as the other two.

 _"Yeah, you know, from Charlotte's Web,"_ the woman clarified.

"Nope. Too confusing for anyone who would not get the reference," Spidey denied.

 _"Arachne,"_ the girl then placed forward.

Spider-Man seemed to pause in consideration for a moment, until he finally nodded and said, "Okay, that'll work."

"It does seem appropriate," Diana interrupted, gaining the spider hero's attention once again. "So, do we have a location to travel to now?"

"Indeed we do," Spider-Man nodded before he turned and fired out a thin, strand of webbing. "Follow me and try to keep up. We're heading for the Big Sky Billiard Lounge Club to speak with the guy that every lowlife you'll meet will say is the man to talk to about this kind of thing: one Blackie Gaxton."

* * *

Blackie just wanted a very simple life, and when he first started out, he figured that he would get such a thing by being a bookie and running the club for one of his regular business associates from the criminal underworld, while also gaining a small side profit from the various crooks and criminals. It did not really matter to him where the money came from so long as he got whatever money he was owed. Of course, that could be part of the reason why he now has to deal with a certain web-head always showing up at his regular place of business asking questions after having to tangle with whatever fool was stupid enough to think that they could take him on.

The only difference between Spider-Man's past visits and this one was the fact that he had actually brought the one thing Blackie never thought he would see the wall-crawler bring: backup, and that was in the form of two members of the Justice League. When everyone in the joint saw Spider-Man come in with both Captain America and Wonder Woman, a lot of them quickly cleared out faster than usual, but there were still one or two who stuck around to try and take the heroes on, only to end up webbed to the ceiling or knocked out barely a minute later. When the chaos of the heroes' arrival in the club had finally ended, Blackie just barely managed to keep his eyebrow from twitching in irritation when Spider-Man leaped over onto the table he was seated at, and immediately groaned out, "Can't you ever go to someone else for info on whatever it is you're looking for?"

"Now why would I do that when we've already got so much history, Blackie," Spider-Man quipped in reply. He then became a little more serious and asked, "So, any chance you could tell us anything about the newest member of the Goblin family, like where he's believed to be hiding and such?"

"I might be willing to, assuming I did know, but what would I gain from telling you that," Blackie inquired.

"How about the fact that we don't run you in for your illegal gambling ring for starters," Captain America suggested.

"You really think I'm worried about that, Captain," Blackie asked. "I've got plenty of favors and the numbers of some of the best lawyers at my beck and call."

"Alright then, how about you avoid a trip to the hospital," Wonder Woman growled before she lifted Blackie out of his chair by the front of his shirt.

That drew more of a reaction from Spider-Man than it did from Blackie, as the web-head was instantly over to Wonder Woman's side and grabbing her arm as he cried out, "Whoa, hold up there, Wonder Woman! Let's not go all Amazon warrior on him like that! We don't do that kind of thing."

"Speak for yourself," Wonder Woman spat, though it was more due to Spider-Man inadvertently bringing up the topic of her Amazon heritage than anything else, as that had led her to remember her status as an exile once again, and considering how things had been going that day, she felt more inclined to lash out in fury about it than she did crying about it.

"Wonder Woman, stand down," Captain America ordered, having recognized the signs that indicated what his teammate was thinking, and that proved to be enough to get Wonder Woman to back off and drop Blackie back into his seat, with the bookie grumbling a bit under his breath about crazy bitches and something that Spider-Man would never, in good conscious ever repeat around anyone. After a minute or so, Steve looked to Spider-Man as if to silently ask if he could handle this, and when the web-head nodded in reply to the unasked question, Steve turned to follow Diana outside to see how she was doing.

Diana had sensed Steve's approach, of course, but she was a bit preoccupied with the various feelings that she was currently wrapped up in to acknowledge the super soldier until he was standing right next to her. "Maybe it was a mistake for me to go out like this again," Diana finally said after another minute of silence. "I'm clearly still not over what happened back at home…assuming I should even call it that now that I've been exiled, and if what happened back there is any indication, I would probably be better off only coming out when the League needs me."

"Stow that talk, soldier," Steve gently ordered his friend. "If you just stay indoors all day crying over what happened, then you're not dealing with it, you're just hiding from it. More importantly, you can't really say that you're helping protect the world if you don't know just what it is you're protecting. What you're going through right now is actually pretty normal."

"How," Diana asked. "How is this normal, Steve? No matter where I go in the world now, I'm an outsider. Even in my own home, I'm an outsider because of my exile. I just wanted to go and speak with my mother about my decision to leave and help the rest of the world without telling her, and then…a situation like this whole Hobgoblin madness happened. What's the point in doing anything when you feel like you don't belong anywhere."

Steve was silent throughout Diana's entire rant, and when she finally finished, he did not hesitate to place a hand on her shoulder and give it a comforting rub as he said, "You know, you're not the only outsider here. In a way, I've also been exiled from my home. Sure I can still live in New York, but it's not the same New York I knew growing up. Everything's changed so much that it's like I'm living in a whole new world, and I can never hope to return to my old one. The thing is, I'm lucky to have friends like you and the rest of the League to help me remember just what I'm doing here, and I'm sure that I'll be able to do the same for you along with the others, if you'll let us."

Diana took a few minutes to let Steve's words sink in, until she finally gave him a small, tearful smile as she placed her hand over his in a show of thanks, not realizing for a minute how she was losing herself in the intense, passionate gaze of his eyes. In fact, she was not even sure what had prompted her to do so, but after staring into his eyes for a minute, she found herself slowly leaning closer to him, while he was doing the same, until a certain web-head's voice suddenly interrupted the moment, causing them to jerk back before anything more could happen. "Sorry to interrupt you two, but Blackie had something that seems solid," Spider-Man called out after he had swung himself out of the club and atop a nearby street post.

"Right. Let's get moving," Steve nodded, thankful that he was able to school his voice enough to keep anyone from noticing how he stuttered a little for a moment.

Diana's only response was to nod in agreement, and after Steve had climbed onto his motorcycle once again, the three were off to the location Blackie said that Hobgoblin was likely to be, with Spider-Man leading the way. As she flew after the arachnid themed hero, Diana cast a few, nervous glances towards Steve and could not help but wonder what had just happened right then. Eventually, she figured that it would be better not to dwell on it at the moment and brought her focus forward so that she would be ready for the upcoming confrontation with the hideous, bestial criminal.

* * *

After traveling across New York for a few hours, the three were soon situated on a rooftop that was overlooking an abandoned, Oscorp warehouse, which Spider-Man reported was used to store a lot of technology that Oscorp had created back in the day when its founder and CEO, Norman Osborn was still alive for one reason or another. From the way that Spider-Man had explained that information though, Steve could not help but wonder if Spidey knew exactly the reason why that technology was stored in this particular warehouse before it was shut down, a fact that he quickly pointed out. Spider-Man then went on to explain that a lot of the technology stored in warehouses like this one was actually the technology that had been used by the Green Goblin during his reign of terror on the city, which seemed to raise a few flags for both the super soldier and the exiled Amazon. Still, it did not detract from one specific fact.

"How can you be so sure that Hobgoblin is here," Captain America finally asked.

"I know how Goblins tend to think, for starters," Spider-Man said in a tone that, on the surface seemed to boast of confidence, yet still had an undercurrent of sadness to it. "Green Goblin had a tendency to be unpredictable, which is part of the reason why he was hard to pin down, but Hobgoblin is a bit easier to figure out. For one thing, he does a lot of work as either a hired gun or muscle for various individuals, most of which are good at covering their tracks so that nothing done can be traced back to them, and second of all, when he's just looting various businesses for his own personal gain, it tends to be in areas like this one, which are close to the places where the original Goby stockpiled his equipment. Though out of all those areas, this is the one that Hobgoblin is seen in the most, at least, according to Blackie and what he had heard. After that, Arachne just needed to analyze and confirm that information, along with his various flight paths, and after that, it was just a matter of expert computer magic to track it back here."

 _"You're welcome, by the way,"_ Arachne's voice added over the comm. in Spider-Man's watch.

"So now the question is how do we stop him," Wonder Woman pointed out, as while there would not likely be any civilians for Hobgoblin to use this time, there was no denying that the Goblin was certainly a competent fighter in his own right.

"I've already got that covered," Spider-Man revealed as he reached into a belt that was concealed beneath the shirt of his suit. "When Carlie called us, I was actually just about to head out, so I was able to pick up a few vials of the Goblin Cure that Arachne and I were able to synthesize with help from a couple of mutual friends that had been doing research on the original Goblin Serum that created the original Green Goblin back when he was first around."

"So we just need to inject the Hobgoblin with this serum, and he'll return to his normal state," Captain America inquired, hoping he was understanding all of this correctly.

"Well…not exactly," Spider-Man admitted. "If this was the original flavor of Goblin, then yeah, that would be it, but sadly, Hobgoblin's skin is a lot thicker than Green Goblin's, which makes it impossible to inject him with this stuff as though it were a flu shot, so we're going to need to figure out a way to make him drink it."

"In that case, I think I might have a plan," Captain America then said. "But it will require having both Diana and I each taking the vials of Goblin Cure for safe measure, keeping the fight inside that warehouse, and a good distraction."

The minute Captain America had said those last words, both he and Wonder Woman found their gaze turning to Spider-Man, and this was an action that the web-head did not miss at all. "What," Spider-Man asked, unsure why they were looking at him like that, until it suddenly clicked for him. "Oh come on! First Team Arrow does this and now you guys too? Why is it that every time I do a superhero team-up, I somehow end up being bait for the bad guys?"

"Perhaps it's because you wear an outfit that typically sticks out like a sore thumb and you clearly have a tendency to talk a lot," Diana suggested in a light joking tone.

"Really," Spider-Man asked. "Not only are you hating on my sense of humor, but do you really want to go there when it comes to superhero wardrobe?"

"Let's finish this discussion later, shall we," Steve suggested before they could go any further. "You'd better head down there and see if Hobgoblin's home. We'll be right behind you, sticking to the shadows in case he is and starts attacking you."

"Aye-aye, Captain, but I'm going to be expecting a few Scooby Snacks when this is over," Spider-Man replied.

"What Snacks," Captain America asked in confusion.

"Never mind," Spider-Man sighed before he finally jumped off the building to swing over to the warehouse, which he disappeared into a few seconds later. Steve just looked at Diana for a minute, still confused by Spider-Man's previous quip, until the Amazon princess finally just shrugged and flew after their new acquaintance with Steve doing the same a few seconds later.

* * *

Almost instantly after he had entered the warehouse, Spider-Man was greeted with the sight of the various different weapons and tools that Green Goblin and now Hobgoblin used in their escapades during his numerous encounters with them. In all honesty, Spider-Man had hoped that after Norman Osborn's passing, he had seen the last of any variety of Goblins, period, and yet, barely half a year later, this new guy called the Hobgoblin had shown up and started causing problems for both him and everyone else in New York ever since. Sure, Spidey had managed to stop him once or twice, but the guy always managed to slip away before he could be brought in by either the cops or anyone else who could actually detain someone like Hobgoblin. This time would be different though, because not only would he be able to stop the Hobgoblin, he would also expose the man beneath the Goblin mutation for good, assuming the cure worked on him as well as it did on Osborn.

After another minute of looking around at the area and crawling along the ceiling, Spider-Man figured he had waited long enough before doing what he needed to, and called out, "Well, this place looks like a Goblin hideout, is stockpiled with enough of the various tools of the trade for a Goblin hideout, and even smells like a Goblin hideout. At this point, the only thing that seems to be missing is the actual Goblin for said Goblin hideout."

"Oh, I think I can fix that easily enough," Hobgoblin's voice shouted out, and at that point, Spidey's ever helpful Spider-Sense started tingling, warning him to get off the ceiling right away, and it was good thing that it did, because no sooner had he picked up on the warning, the Hobgoblin had thrown a number of fireballs right at the spot where he had previously been. "Come into my parlor, said the goblin to the spider," the successor to Norman Osborn's insanity cackled as he flew around over Spider-Man like a vulture circling its prey.

"I'm pretty sure I've already done that. Right now, I'm just wondering when you started being able to throw _fire_. Seriously, I am so due for a power upgrade," Spider-Man quipped in reply before he sprang forward and flipped into action. Sadly, that was really all Spider-Man found himself able to do, as despite the fact that he had a slight advantage over Hobgoblin in an enclosed space like the warehouse, Hobgoblin still had the advantage of being able to fly, and was thus easily able to outmaneuver Spidey at almost every turn before retaliating in whatever way that he could.

Eventually, Hobgoblin managed to land a solid hit on the web-swinger, which sent Spidey flying into a number of crates that were packed with some of the old pumpkin bombs that Green Goblin had used in the days gone by. The only good thing to come out of said collision was that the bombs were not armed in any way that would have caused them to go off the minute he hit the crates, but that small silver lining did little to keep Spider-Man from groaning both due to the pain he was already feeling and from the headache he had that was only getting worse due to Hobgoblin's maniacal laughter. "Did you really think it would be that easy for you to beat me on my own turf," Hobgoblin laughed.

At that point, Spider-Man could not keep the smirk off his face even if he wanted to, and a part of him was a little disappointed that Hobgoblin could not see it behind his mask, even as he revealed, "To be honest, I wasn't really trying."

Hobgoblin's laughter immediately came to an end when he heard that, and he soon found himself replacing said laughter with a loud grunt of pain as someone dropped down on him from behind and then wrapped their arms around his neck in a strong hold before he could properly recover. Looking over his shoulder allowed Hobgoblin to see that Captain America was the one responsible, and the super soldier's grip did not seem to let up in the slightest, save for when Cap removed one arm to reach into his belt and pull out a vial of Goblin Cure, which he quickly uncapped and started moving towards the Hobgoblin's mouth. "Time to take your medicine, psycho," Captain America stated.

"Oh but you're about to need it more than I do, along with a hospital," Hobgoblin retorted, and he quickly flew straight up before slamming his back into the ceiling, and since Steve was still hanging onto him from behind, the super soldier ended up taking the majority of the blow and the injuries that ensued. Steve was not really sure how, but he somehow managed to shake off the pain from said attack, and unfortunately, that was all Hobgoblin needed to see before he flew down and slammed both his back and the super soldier into another wall, forcing Steve to weaken his grip just enough for the mad villain to rip the World War II veteran from where he was in order to send a powerful jolt of electricity straight into Cap's body. After enjoying the sound of Captain America crying out in pain for another minute or so, Hobgoblin ceased his electric assault and tossed the captain into another pile of crates that were full of Goblin related items, where Steve promptly passed out.

Seeing that he had managed to beat Captain America made the Hobgoblin pause for a minute, almost as though he were considering if he should just kill the super soldier or take a picture of this as proof that he had managed to take down Captain America at all, and that proved to be all the distraction that Spider-Man needed to fire a volley of webs into the Hobgoblin that either disoriented or somehow managed to tie up the monstrous criminal. Hobgoblin was naturally annoyed by this sudden assault from the web-head, but he was unable to retaliate, as he soon found his arms pinned to his sides by Wonder Woman's lasso, as the Amazon princess herself pulled back to keep the Goblin from moving so much as an inch towards either of her companions while she made sure that the glare she leveled on the Hobgoblin showed just how furious she was with the criminal.

"I won't allow you to hurt anyone else today, vile monster," Wonder Woman roared as she gave her lasso a hard tug that ended up pulling Hobgoblin over to her. Diana then allowed the supervillain to sail past her and into the wall, where Spider-Man immediately aimed his web-shooters so that he could web the Goblin in place, and once the sticky, white substance had secured Hobgoblin where he was, Diana immediately dashed over with a vial of the Goblin Cure in hand and already opened, and shoved the vial down the villain's throat.

When Hobgoblin realized what Wonder Woman had done, his eyes quickly widened in horror, and he was soon crying out in protest as his body shrank down, his ears became less pointed, and his bald head started to grow a few strands of hair, until he had changed completely back into a human being again. When he had, the man behind the Goblin was revealed to be a dark skinned man with white-blonde hair and dark colored eyes, which Spider-Man and Wonder Woman only glimpsed before the man passed out. After another minute of staring at the mystery man in silence, Wonder Woman finally asked, "Do you know who this is?"

"Yeah, I recognize him," Spider-Man nodded. "His name's Roderick Kingsley. I remember seeing him dealing with a couple of big time crime boss underlings during a time when the city was nearly swept up in a gang war between two of its biggest crime bosses at the time. Wasn't really sure why he wanted what they were auctioning for at the time, still don't know to be honest, but considering what we've found out tonight, I get the feeling that it wasn't to help his perfume company."

Wonder Woman just nodded in response and let Spider-Man call Arachne so that she could notify the police of their location in order to pick up the exposed Hobgoblin, until her gaze settled on Captain America's still unconscious form. Fear immediately seemed to grip Diana's entire body as she raced over and lifted anything that was on top of Steve off of him, and she quickly breathed a quick sigh of relief when she realized he was still breathing, but it was still clear that he was seriously hurt. Recognizing this, Wonder Woman immediately called Spider-Man over, hoping that he could help her get Steve to the nearest hospital, but the web-head had a better idea.

"We're a lot closer to my place than we are to a hospital, and I've got a friend who's had to stitch me up quite a few times. He'll be a better option if you don't want to start a media circus," Spider-Man revealed, and seeing that he had a point, Diana found that she could do nothing but nod as she gently lifted Steve up into her arms, being as mindful as she could be of his injuries, at least in terms of the ones she could see. As soon as she had started to get a firm hold on him, Spider-Man suddenly made his way over and offered, "I can take him over for you if you want to get his bike."

Diana shook her head as she revealed, "His motorcycle has an autopilot that can follow a tracking signal in his suit. It'll be fine. Besides, I don't know how to drive a motorcycle."

Spider-Man nodded in acceptance of this while breathing a quick sigh of relief, seeing as he did not even have a learner's permit of his own. Hey, he lived in New York and he normally gets around by web-swinging, which typically allowed him to move faster than a speeding car, so why would he really need a car? After helping Diana carry the unconscious Captain America out of the warehouse, Spider-Man tapped his watch and said, "Arachne, call Doc Connors and tell him that we're going to need his help with a medical matter."

 _"You do know that Connors can start to get tired of always patching you up if you keep calling him like this, right,"_ Arachne asked.

"Not for me. It's for Captain America."

That seemed to put a stop to his female partner's sarcastic and witty remarks, as evidenced by how her voice was completely serious the next time she spoke. _"I'm calling him now."_

* * *

Steve could not help but wonder how he always seemed to wake up in places he did not recognize whenever he was unconscious, because he could tell just from the faint sounds of traffic that were probably coming through an open window that he was certainly not in the warehouse that they were in when he blacked out. Thankfully, experience had taught him to not just react on instinct and attack everyone in sight like he had on the Watchtower, so he simply went the cliché route and asked the one question that everyone always asks when they wake up in a place they do not recognize. "Where am I," Steve asked, only to wince a little in pain a moment later, which drew his gaze to the person who was tending to whatever wounds he currently had. The man in question was Caucasian with blonde hair, wore a black t-shirt, dress slacks, and a white lab coat, and from what Steve could tell, the individual in question also possessed a prosthetic arm in place of his right arm. After studying the man for another minute, Steve went on to ask, "Who're you?"

The blonde man said nothing for a minute, opting to focus on what he was doing instead, until he finally replied with one word. "Spider-Man."

Steve looked the man up and down for a minute, and eventually had to smirk and say, "I don't think so."

"Just once I'd like someone to believe that," the man smiled in good humor, indicating that he was joking a little when he said he was Spider-Man. "Doctor Curt Connors, Captain. I'm a mutual friend of our city's local web-swinger, one who owes him a great deal, actually. He and his tech support friend called me up and told me what had happened, and I was more than happy to provide whatever medical aid that I could, which is considerable given that I am a former military doctor." Connors then took a small flashlight and shined it in Steve's eyes for a minute before he set it down and smiled once again as he reported, "Well, you'll be happy to know that not only have you avoided suffering a concussion, you also do not seem to have suffered any very serious injuries, no doubt thanks to the protection that your suit provides, but I would recommend avoiding anymore Mad Goblin rides for a while if you don't want that to change."

Steve immediately stood up from the bed he was lying back on at that point, and accepted his shield when he saw Connors offering it to him. "Thank you Doctor."

"Please, call me Curt. Any friend of Spider-Man's is a friend of mine," Connors insisted before he moved aside, allowing Steve to take a minute to observe his surroundings.

All-in-all, the place was actually rather impressive, and it actually reminded him a little of the S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City in a way, what with the small lab setup it had and the various computers that were placed in a central hub in the middle of the room. On one of the lab tables, Steve was able to spot a variety of tools and equipment that were all focused around a number of small, wrist devices, while a chemistry set of some type sat on the opposite end of the table, along with various capsules that seemed to like they were capable of being inserted into the wrist devices. On the table sitting against the opposite wall, Steve could see an array of various notes and other tools that all served some scientific purpose, along with a number of other various devices, including a few small, red and blue colored devices that were in the shape of a spider, which reminded him a little of the tracers that Batman tended to slip onto a criminal without said criminal knowing when he needed to track someone. Looking around to another end of the room allowed Steve to see a set of large, tinted windows, which gave a rather impressive view of the New York skyline that was now enshrouded in the colors of sunset, but it was the final thing that his gaze found that really caught his attention.

There, in a number of display cases, were a variety of different outfits similar to the one that Spider-Man wore. The first was obviously something that was thrown together, as it consisted of a dark brown jacket, dark blue shirt and pants, a red mask, gold tinted sunglasses and a beanie, while the suit next to it was a bit closer to the one that Spider-Man currently wore, except for the fact that it had a bit more blue in it than the current one, and the eyes on the mask were a little more narrow and had the same gold color that the sunglasses the previous suit had. What followed after that was a rather surprising suit, as it was nothing like any of the suits he had seen Spider-Man wearing up until now. The suit in question was all black, save for the large white eyes, a large, white spider symbol that spread across the chest and connected to the one on the back, and a pair of white patches on the back of the hands. Seeing these various versions of Spider-Man's costume on display like this though, only served to further confirm just where Steve had ended up.

"Step into our parlor said Arachne to the captain," the tell-tale voice of Arachne suddenly announced, drawing Steve's attention away from the Spider-Suits to the mystery woman in question. When his eyes found said woman, Steve a bit surprised to see a rather beautiful young woman with long, red hair and green eyes, who wore a dark green hoodie over a grey t-shirt, blue jeans, and a black jacket. "Or to put it more simply, welcome to the Spider-Parlor."

"We do not call it that," Spider-Man's voice called out as he entered the room along with Diana, who quickly shot Steve a bright smile as a show of how glad she was he was alright.

"Well it's either that or Spider-Cave, which doesn't work since, last I checked, a place like this had to be in an underground-like location to be considered a cave," Arachne retorted.

"Okay, we are _never_ calling this place Spider-Cave. Ever," Spider-Man stated in a tone that clearly said that there would be no arguments at all. "Secondly, don't you think you should at least be wearing a mask?"

"Why? Most people never see me when you're out doing your thing, so what's the point in my wearing a mask at all," the redhead asked in disbelief. "Besides, I'm getting the feeling that you plan on telling them your secret identity anyway, so why even bother trying to hide my face? Plus, considering how many people you know that they've met by now, it'd be a miracle if they couldn't eventually figure it out themselves."

Spider-Man was now clearly giving the redhead a look through the lenses of his mask before he turned to face Captain America and Wonder Woman while muttering aloud, "Well to be fair, if you can't trust either of the two people who might as well have just saved your life, or at the very least Captain America, something must be wrong with you. That or you're Batman." A minute later, the web-swinger had removed his mask to reveal a young man who appeared to be in his early to mid-twenties, with brown hair and eyes and a small smile on his face that Steve recognized as a smile that people wore whenever they had lost a lot more than they should have in their lives. "Captain America, Wonder Woman, my name is Peter Parker, and I have been Spider-Man since I was fifteen years old. The smart-alec redhead over here is Mary Jane Watson, my best friend for years, better known as Arachne."

"You forgot to mention that I'm also your ex-girlfriend," Mary Jane pointed out.

"Okay, to be fair, it's not like we really went out for very long, and part of it was just after…well, you know," Peter pointed out as his tone became a little more subdued near the end. When she noticed this, Mary Jane's teasing smile fell a little, and she had to give a small nod in conceit of this point, knowing full well what Peter was referring to.

Steve had taken notice of this small exchange that had slightly changed the atmosphere for a moment, but he eventually had to smile a little in response to the fact that the young man in front of him and Diana was so willing to trust them with his secret before he stepped forward and extended his hand as he said, "A pleasure to meet you, Peter, and please, just call me Steve."

Peter just beamed in response as he eagerly accepted the super soldier's offered handshake, and he then looked towards Diana, who had taken to stare at him with a rather shocked expression that almost seemed frozen on her face. Now some would probably think that Diana's shock was due to the fact that Spider-Man was so willing to trust her with his secret identity, but in reality, it was more due to the fact that he looked so young. Really, from Diana's perspective, he looked like he was not even that much older than her younger sister. Eventually, Diana found her voice again, and ended up saying, "Why would someone who's as young as you are be so willing to go out and be a hero every day in the way that you do?"

Peter's face immediately fell into a serious expression as he revealed, "Because in the words of one of the wisest men I've ever known, with great power, comes great responsibility. I ignored the responsibility that my powers came with once, and my Uncle Ben, who had raised me like his own son since I was just a small child, ended up paying the price for it. My uncle died because I looked the other way when I could have done something to help, and ever since, I've made sure that I would do whatever I could to use my powers to defend the city I call home and everyone that I can to the best of my abilities, while making sure that I keep living up to the responsibility that my powers come with as the sensational Spider-Man."

Steve and Diana both had to smile at Peter's words, both very impressed with Peter's maturity and dedication to what he does as Spider-Man, and after a few more minutes of talking and promising the group that they would keep Peter's secret safe, Captain America and Wonder Woman departed through the large windows, to the street below, where Cap quickly spotted his motorcycle, knowing that Diana had likely used his signaling device to call it here after they had arrived. Once Steve had made sure everything on his bike was as it should be, he immediately started it up, and the two began to make their way back to Steve's apartment, eager for a long night's rest.

* * *

Shortly after returning to Brooklyn, Diana found she could not contain herself for very long, because the minute they were walking up the stairs to Steve's apartment, she immediately slapped him on the arm, but the smile on her face showed that there was likely very little ill intent behind it. "What was that for," Steve asked as he rubbed the offended arm.

"For lying to me about why you wanted to go out," Diana revealed as she landed a few more light slaps on the super soldier's arm and shoulder.

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about," Steve quickly disputed, even though he did know full well what she had been referring to.

Clearly this was not missed by Diana, as her smile did not fade for a second, even as she placed her hands on her hips to make it seem like she was making an effort to be angry with him when she clarified, "You never had an errand to run for Stark at all."

Steve's poker face immediately fell before a sheepish smile replaced it while he rubbed the back of his neck in slight nervousness, knowing that he had been found out. "When did you figure it out," Steve inquired.

"Sometime after we had gone with Spider-Man to speak with the bookie at that club," Diana revealed with a knowing smile.

"So…you're not mad, are you," Steve asked in an effort to make sure he was not misreading the signals that he was being sent.

Diana said nothing in reply, but instead just stepped a little closer to Steve and planted a small kiss on his cheek, surprising the super soldier once she had, and then whispered, "How could I be mad at someone who was looking out for me?"

All sense of speech had abandoned Steve at that point, and he quickly found that he was just barely able to keep walking forward at a pace that would allow him to match Diana's, which led his eyes to study her figure from behind as she continued on to his apartment while his mind started leading to a variety of thoughts pertaining to said Amazon. When he realized what he was doing, Steve quickly gave himself a hard, mental shake to snap himself out of it and quickly picked up his pace, not minding the fact that a very broad smile had now planted itself on his face when his mind wandered back to the kiss Diana had just given him. Glancing over at Diana, Steve could not help but smile a little more when he saw that for the first time since they had returned from Themyscira, Diana was smiling with a true happiness in the way that only she was able to, and that just made everything that much better.

Their shared smiles quickly turned to surprised looks when they were finally close enough to see the door to Steve's apartment and the fact that someone they had not expected at all was standing right outside it. "I was beginning to wonder if you planned on returning home," Hippolyta lightly joked when she saw the two approaching, no doubt partially due to the fact that she found the stunned looks on their faces to be a little humorous.

"Mother? What're you doing here," Diana gasped in honest shock.

"Two reasons really: first is that while I may have been forced to exile you from Themyscira, I did not say anything about exiling you from my life all together," Hippolyta replied as she opened her arms wide in a silent request for a hug, which Diana happily granted.

Steve was honestly still confused about a variety of things, but before he could ask any of those things, a new, younger voice suddenly asked, "Hey, what about me? Don't I get a hug? I mean, you didn't even bother to say hi the last time you were home, so that's the least you owe me, big sister."

The two Leaguers' attention was soon directed right onto a young girl who seemed to be around the same age as Peter, and who looked a lot like Diana. She also wore an outfit that was similar to Diana's Wonder Woman suit, except for the fact that it was all red and left only her arms bare, while black boots were on her feet. Aside from the white stars that went up the length of her legs to the chest of her suit, the only other deviations from the red coloring of her outfit was the yellow belt with a "W" on the buckle and the silver bracelets on her wrists. The large, beaming smile she was currently flashing at the two, but mostly towards Diana, showed a series of pearly white teeth while giving Steve something of an idea of how Diana's smile probably looked at the age of this girl. After another minute of staring in shock, Diana was soon smiling just as brightly as she immediately wrapped the younger girl in what seemed to Steve to be a bone-crushing hug while she happily exclaimed, "Donna! It's so good to see you little sister!"

At that point, Steve finally found his voice again and he quickly said, "Okay, I've got a few questions: first off, Diana, when you called her your sister, do you mean as in your actual sister or…"

Diana could not help but chuckle a little, knowing full well why Steve was confused, and quickly replied, "Yes, she is my little sister by blood. Steve, this is Donna Troy. Donna, this is Steve Rogers, known better to man's world as Captain America."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain," Donna said with a small, polite bow.

"Likewise," Steve nodded in return before he looked to Diana's mother. "Next, how'd you even get here?"

"We Amazons may have lived on Themyscira for centuries, Captain, but we do have many ways of getting off the island," Hippolyta answered, cryptically. "As for how we got here, specifically, your friend Superman was kind enough to tell us where we might find you."

Steve nodded in acceptance of that, knowing that Superman likely had a good reason to send Diana's mother out this way, and then went on to say, "Well, whatever else there is to discuss, I'm sure we'd all prefer to not do so out in the hallway, so…shall we?"

The three Amazons immediately nodded in thanks to Steve's hospitality as he offered to lead them into his apartment, and not a few minutes later, the three women were all seated in what served as Steve's living room while the super soldier had gone to his room to change out of his suit before preparing a few drinks for everyone. Eventually, Diana felt that she could not wait for their host, and soon asked, "You said there was another reason why you were here, Mother. Would it be alright if I asked what that reason is?"

Hippolyta just smiled in response to her daughter's question before she said, "Diana, I may be your mother and your queen, but I highly doubt that you really need to stand on ceremony with me at the moment. To answer your question though, yes, there was another reason I am here. It's a matter regarding your exile."

"What do you mean," Diana asked, immediately feeling a little nervous as to what this could possibly be.

Hippolyta easily understood her daughter's concern, and immediately raised a calming hand in order to try and ease Diana's nerves as she elaborated, "What I mean is that it is a way for you to right the wrong you had committed, seeing as you had only done so in order to save us. The gods are more than able to recognize such things, and so am I, but really, you have your friend in the other room to really thank for this."

"How do you mean, your highness," Steve asked as he finally came to join the three with some iced mochas in hand, which he quickly passed out. Barry had told him that Diana had really liked the drink when she first tried it, so Steve was hoping that the same would hold true for her family as well.

"You were the one who had proposed that I try and find a way for Diana to make things right, and I had been pondering on such things ever since your departure. I now believe I have found a solution," Hippolyta clarified. She then looked directly at her daughter and stated, "Diana, it is quite clear that we have cut ourselves off from man's world for much longer than we realized, and we can all now acknowledge that there are some things about it that affect us as much as it does everyone outside of our island. That is why, I have decided to appoint you as Themyscira's representative to man's world, and among its government. Superman has already helped me to make all the arrangements so that it is official."

Diana's eyes had quickly become as wide as saucers when she heard this news, because while she may have been royalty, this would actually be the first time she had ever become fully involved with politics. She was honored of course, but she was still confused with what this had to do with her exile, since her mother had not yet mentioned that detail, specifically, and that was a fact that she did not hesitate to point out. Hippolyta seemed to smile a little more at her daughter's observation, and immediately elaborated, "If you are able to serve our home faithfully, then your exile shall be ended, and to make sure that you do so, you will be observed by someone from our home."

Diana's eyes immediately locked onto Donna when she heard that last part, having a feeling that she already knew the observer's identity, and Donna immediately smiled in response to the unasked question as she revealed, "That's right, big sister. I'm going to be the one babysitting you now!"

At another time, Diana would likely have had some sort of witty comeback in response to her little sister's jab, but at the moment, she was too happy at this news to really care, so instead she just jumped up from her seat and wrapped both her mother and sister in a tight hug while thanking her mother at least a million times over. This action brought a smile to Hippolyta's face as she returned said hug, and Steve was soon smiling as well at seeing that the family of Amazons seemed to have a stronger chance of getting back together again someday. Seeing this immediately reminded him of the last thing Diana had said to her mother before they left Themyscira, and Steve immediately thought to himself that Diana was wrong to think that the fates were against her family, because it seemed that they were most definitely in her favor now.

After letting the three finish their little family moment, Hippolyta seemed like she was about to get ready to leave, until Steve quickly stopped her and said, "I understand that you have an entire island to take care of as its queen, ma'am, but I would feel like a very poor host if I did not offer you to stay a little longer for dinner."

Hippolyta seemed to consider this for a moment, but since she knew this would allow her to spend a little more time with her daughters, she found that the decision was easily made, and she gladly accepted the super soldier's offer. As Donna and Hippolyta moved to try their drinks, which they both found most enjoyable, Diana pulled Steve aside and whispered, "Do you really think that you have time or even enough food to cook a meal for myself and my family?"

"Honestly? No, that's why I ordered pizza," Steve revealed just as someone knocked on the door. Steve could not help but smirk a little at Diana's surprised look when he elaborated, "Hey, you didn't really think I was just changing into civilian attire earlier, did you?"

Diana smiled in response to this as she let Steve go to answer the door and pay the pizza deliveryman while she walked back over to her mother and sister. When she reached them though, she noticed that Donna had a mischievous look on her face, and despite the fact that she probably would not like the answer, Diana felt that she had to ask, "What're you smiling about?"

"Oh nothing," Donna replied in a sing-song tone. "I was just thinking that Steve Rogers seems cute. Are you in a relationship with him?"

"I must admit, I was wondering that myself as well," Hippolyta admitted with a smile that matched her youngest daughter's.

Diana immediately gained a brilliant blush as she stuttered, "Mother! Donna! We're just friends and we work together on the Justice League…and…and…"

"And you're currently living together as well," Donna pointed out.

"He…he offered to let me stay here a while back as a way of helping me to feel a little better while I was still feeling sad about my exile. We're not living together; I'm just a guest," Diana protested in defense.

While Hippolyta would not deny watching Diana acting like this was entertaining, she did have enough sense to tell Donna to drop it for now, even though she knew that the youngest Amazon of her family was not likely to let it go for a while. Thankfully for Diana, they had done so right when Steve had returned with the pizza and they all politely waited for the super soldier to pass out plates with at least one slice of the delicacy for each of them, and it was at that point, Hippolyta felt that she had to ask, "So what has been your impression of man's world since you first came here, Diana?"

Diana had to pause for a minute so that she could think back on all that she had encountered since she had first ventured outside the boundaries of her island home, including what she had seen and experienced today as well, before she finally replied, "While it does seem that there are a few individuals that fit the image we were taught as children, I am happy to say that I've met a few good people who are not like the beings we were raised to believe that all mankind were like. Steve is actually just one example of such people, and just today, the two of us met a young man who had been fighting for justice since he was just a child, and he did not seem like he was that much older than you, Donna. Though his attire is very strange, he seems determined to throw himself into any sort of fires for the sake of others and not ask for anything in return, because he lives by a philosophy that someone very close to him had once taught him."

"And what philosophy is that," Donna asked, admittedly quite curious about this person that Diana was telling them about.

"That with great power, comes great responsibility," Diana revealed, repeating the words that Spider-Man had said to them earlier.

The other two Amazons had to smile at hearing this, both happy to hear that a person who lived by such a philosophy existed in man's world, and they all then went on to continue their meal in at a simple pace, only pausing for a moment when Hippolyta and Donna felt the need to praise Steve's choice of food for their meal when they found that they actually liked the pizza a lot, and the entire time, Diana continued to tell her family some of the stories of things she had encountered since coming into man's world, all the while leading everyone to think that things were certainly looking up a little for all of them.

* * *

 ** _AN: Well that's that. Now before you all go off thinking that Spider-Man and his pals are all really OOC, I just want to make it clear that this is my interpretation of how Spider-Man would be in this story's continuity. Well actually, that's not entirely accurate. This is actually my interpretation of Spider-Man as he would be in both this story and in the Arrow-verse, you know the continuity that we get from_ _The Flash_ _and Arrow. I'd like to think that it kinda blends the feel of both of those two together while giving it that old Spidey flare, in the sense that the place is set up in a manner similar to S.T.A.R. Labs in The Flash, yet at the same time it kinda features a team that's similar to team Arrow. Basically, MJ is Felicity and Connors is kinda a combination of Diggle and Roy, because, in case it isn't obvious, yes he has been Lizard before now, and he did in fact serve as a military medic in the past. Look it up if you don't believe me._**

 ** _I hope you all were able to recognize the various Spider-Man related items that were in the Spider-Parlor, and yes we will be calling it that, despite Spider-Man's protests, but in case you didn't, I'm gonna go ahead and clue you in: in order, we saw various versions of Spidey's web-shooters and the stuff he uses to make web fluid, the spider-tracers, and finally, some of Spider-Man's past suits, at least in this continuity. In case it was unclear, the first two were the suits that the web-head wore in The Amazing Spider-Man, identified in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game as "Vigilante" and...well, "The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 Movie)". And if you really can't recognize the last one, something must be wrong with you, because really, how many of Spidey's suits are all black save for the white spider symbol and eyes?_**

 ** _As for Mary Jane's code-name being Arachne, I am well aware that there has been a hero in MARVEL comics that has used that code-name in the past, but like Spidey said, the name Madame Web was taken, they were not going to call her Spider-Girl, as that would imply that she has spider powers as well, and Charlotte would be too confusing for anyone who would be unable to get the reference. Arachne just seemed appropriate since that is the name of the spider goddess and all that._**

 ** _Next item is the matter of Hobgoblin. Admittedly, I couldn't help but feel that the guy had not really been getting the attention he deserved in recent years, because really, the last time we saw the Hobgoblin outside of the comics was in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, you know, the one from the 90's. If you have a hard time picturing his appearance as Hobgoblin, then just think of the Green Goblin in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and recolor it with Hobgoblin's colors as I had specified, and give then give him the wings that Hobgoblin 2099 had in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions._**

 ** _Another thing I want to mention, is that both Gwen and Captain Stacy have already died in this continuity, and that's part of the reason why Carlie Cooper is now NYPD police captain in this story, and also why Peter and MJ's mood fell a little earlier when they were talking with Connors, Cap, and Diana in the Spider-Parlor. I know that Carlie was technically never in such a position in the comics, but I didn't want to go with someone like Jean De Wolfe like everyone else seems to when it comes to fanfics with Spider-Man in them._**

 ** _Finally, the introduction of Donna Troy, aka the original Wonder Girl, and Diana becoming a government representative for her people. I'll admit, that was not really an original idea. I got it from another fanfic I read a while back, but the idea just worked so well that I had to go with it. Besides, you didn't really think that I was going to just leave things as they were between Diana and her family after last chapter, did you? And yeah, that little bit at the end there between Donna and her big sister was necessary. How often do you not hear of siblings teasing each other about their feelings towards a potential love interest like that? Plus, Cap had to deal with that last chapter, so this time, it was Diana's turn._**

 ** _Now next chapter is going to keep things pretty original, as we see Cap head off on another adventure in the world of one of his fellow Leaguers, or should I say universe. Don't take my word for it though, just move Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _What started out as a rather peaceful day for Captain America, soon turns into a journey that even he had never expected to take when John's Green Lantern ring suddenly appears before him and drags him off to the homeworld of the Green Lantern Corp. Shortly afterwards, Steve finds himself among some of the best Lanterns as he joins them in discovering what had become of his fellow Leaguer, leading to an adventure that allows him to see just how great a responsibility and how vast a world John is part of. Discover the universe that lies beyond Earth next time in…_** **Chapter 8: In Brightest Day** ** _._**

 ** _That's right, Cap's off on an adventure into the universe of the Green Lanterns! Who's excited?_**

 ** _Oh, and by the way, if anyone wants me to do a little more elaboration on an Arrow-verse version of Spider-Man, please say so in the reviews, because I can't deny that the idea has a lot of merit, and it would allow you all to get a better idea of what this story's Spider-Man is like._**

 ** _Now, with that said..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	8. In Brightest Day

_**Joker: Hello fanfiction readers, reviewers, writers, and all other forms of slouches that enjoy these things! Your favorite clown prince of crime here, Joker, happy to tell you all that the story of Justice Marvel has been canceled, and will never be coming back. Sorry for any of you who were hoping to see the stuff that lyokoMARVELanime has in store for when we reached the stories of the Justice Lords, Savage Time, and of course, Young Justice. [suddenly gets knocked out of the room and through the wall, which leaves a Joker imprinted hole in it by a large boxing glove]**_

 _ **AN: Sorry about that everyone, but it looks like a certain someone has once again attempted a very,**_ **very _bad joke. Not to worry, this story is not getting canceled or put on hiatus anytime soon, at least for the moment, so don't worry about that. Now before we go any further, I'd like to answer a few reviews._**

 ** _First off, in response to a review from "SentinelPrimeKnightOfCybertron", I'm well aware why a lot of factors from all the Arrow-verse series would not work in the original iteration of the DCAU, but in response to that, I'd like to remind you that I have said that I would only be using certain factors from_ Arrow _and_ The Flash _, like the fact that Flash is Barry Allen and works with Cisco and Kaitlin, or that Felicity exists in this universe. Plus, I like Barry as the Flash, and as Joker had pointed out, there will be a Young Justice story to go along with this little adventure later on down the line, and I can't help but like Wally West as Kid Flash more than the Flash, so...yeah. Of course, that will likely be very far down the line, because we do have to get through the Justice League Unlimited story first. Also, while Green Arrow will be like how he was in the DCAU, he will be a bit more serious and gritty than he originally was, but not to any huge extent that would ultimately be a radical change in his character. Plus, I just really want to have a few moments where he says that whole "You have failed this city" line of his, or some other version of it. You can't tell me that isn't cool, can you?_**

 ** _Next off, I've gotten a lot of reviews that showed people really liked Spidey in the previous chapter, and in response to one of those reviews, Spider-Man is in his 30s in the main stream timeline of MARVEL comics, but like many fans, I like a younger version of Spidey, and I wanted him to be a little closer to typical college age. On another note for the same topic, a few of these reviews have also been asking me who I plan to pair Spider-Man up with in this story since he's just best friends with Mary Jane. I won't be answering that just yet, but I will say this much: It will be a female hero from the DC Universe, it will NOT be Supergirl, because we've seen a lot of stories with Kara getting paired up with a hero from another franchise already, it will also not be Black Canary, since I don't plan to break up the pairing between Black Canary and Green Arrow, and despite what some of you are thinking, it will also not be Donna, despite the fact that she debuted in the same chapter as this story's version of Spider-Man. If you want to know more any more than that, you'll have to wait and see. I will say that the girl is a redhead, so that should tease your minds a little more until the big reveal._**

 ** _Now, I'll let you all get on with the story, preferably before either Joker recovers from my little punchline or Deadpool shows up._**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 8: In Brightest Day**

While it was rather impressive that an embassy for Themyscira was set up so quickly, thanks in no small part to a bit of help from Tony Stark, it also meant that things became a bit more quiet around Steve's apartment after the two Amazon sisters had moved out of said apartment. Not that Steve was complaining that much or anything, as he had enjoyed Diana and Donna's company while they were there aside from when the younger sister would tease him and Diana about being in a relationship when they were not, but now that they were living in their own place in New York, it had become a little too peaceful, especially for someone who had spent a good deal of his life as a soldier. Still, that did not mean that things were completely quiet, as Captain America would often be out in the city saving lives and protecting the innocent as he took to making regular patrols of Brooklyn, and sometimes that would lead him to go on a few patrols with Spider-Man as well, which he found to be rather enjoyable from time to time, but there were still a few days when there was nothing to do at all, be it as Captain America or as Steve Rogers.

Today was actually one such day when there seemed to be absolutely nothing going on, despite what the web-swinger would say to the contrary, and while part of Steve wanted to check in on Diana and Donna, he knew that they were still settling in while making a few final arrangements to settle Diana's new government status among the world nations. At one point, Steve had even called in to ask Tony if there was anything that the head of Stark International would need from him today, but Stark had quickly replied that he had everything under control at the moment and told Steve to just enjoy the moment of peace that he had been granted while it lasted, so now, Steve was strolling around New York looking for a good place to grab a bite for lunch, his shield secured on his back while his uniform was worn underneath the civilian attire he currently had on, just in case something did happen.

When he finally happened upon a burger restaurant that seemed good, Steve found himself seated in a booth while enjoying a very delicious meal, ignoring the few stares he got from some people who had caught a glimpse of him, aside from the few times when he would notice an awestruck kid staring at him and simply raised a finger to his lips to give the silent signal for quiet, to which the child would always nod in response to. Once he had finished his burger, Steve stood up, left a tip for the waiter, as he had already paid for his meal after he had gotten it, and headed back out into the sunlit day where he stretched his arms a little and mused aloud, "Well, nothing like a good American burger to really make a peaceful day enjoyable."

Apparently, that simple sentence was all it took to jinx the good day, because a minute after Steve had said that, something small suddenly hit the back of his head, and upon turning to see who had thrown the object and what said object even was, he found himself pausing in shock at the sight of a Green Lantern ring, not unlike the one that his fellow Leaguer, John Stewart wore. More importantly, the ring was flashing rather brightly, even as it floated up off the ground and directly towards him, almost as though it were trying to tell him something. Steve had not really understood a lot about what John had told him in regards to the Green Lantern Corps, aside from the fact that it was basically like a massive group of space cops, but he did understand enough to know that when a Lantern ring appeared before someone like this, it was not likely to mean something good.

"Just what are you doing out here," Steve muttered softly as he reached for the ring, and the minute his finger had simply tapped the edge of the small, green jewelry, a sudden flash of light forced him to shut his eyes in shock. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself inside of a transparent, green bubble, which was racing through space at a speed that Steve had only seen Barry move at, or maybe even faster than that, and considering that his outfit had not changed to the green and black attire that he knew to be that of a Green Lantern, he could only assume that the ring had somehow been told to take him to its owner. When he finally slowed down a little, he saw something that made his eyes go wide in awe.

There before him, was a massive, green world with what appeared to be white lines running across it in a pattern that was similar to that of a circuit board, before they came together in a circular shape at the center, while a pair of rings orbited the planet, and as he came closer to the planet in question, Steve could see a number of alien beings that were decked out in outfits similar to John's, leading him to believe that he had just been transported to Oa, the central headquarters for the Green Lantern Corps, and the planet that was believed to be at the center of the universe. From what Steve had heard, only John normally came here every now and then, due to his responsibilities as a Lantern, while the rest of the League had only been to this planet once before in order to stop a group of machines known as the Manhunters from taking it over, so he naturally felt like he was receiving some type of great honor.

When he landed on Oa's surface and took a moment to look around, Steve spotted a number of tall buildings of various, intricate designs unlike anything someone would likely find on Earth, and all of them were either white or very dark green in color while a variety of bluish-green lines seem to run along the sides of the buildings in various patterns. It all seemed like something that was directly out of science fiction, be it in Steve's day or the present, and Steve could easily tell that Stark would definitely have loved to see all of this for himself. His musings on his current surroundings were soon interrupted when a green energy beam suddenly struck the ground at his feet and drew his gaze skywards in order to find the source. What he found was an alien that seemed to be a mix between a fish and a bird with bright orange skin, decked out in the black and green styling of a Green Lantern. The main difference between this alien Lantern and John was that this Lantern's outfit had a bit more green in it, and his collar had a small opening in the front to reveal a bit of his neck.

"Stay where you are, human," the alien Lantern ordered. "You have no business here on Oa."

"Considering that one of your rings brought me here, I'd beg to differ," Steve retorted as he nodded towards the ring that had done as he had said, which was still floating next to him.

The fish-bird man just glanced at the indicated ring for a minute before aiming his own ring towards the super soldier and said, "That particular ring belongs to the Green Lantern charged with protecting Sector 2814, who has not reported in for some time now. How is that you have it?"

"You tell me, and then we'll both know," Steve retorted.

"Wrong answer, Poozer," a new, deeper voice suddenly shouted, and Steve's attention was immediately drawn upwards and back before he was forced to turn his back towards the source again so that his shield would deflect the blast that was hurtling towards him after the individual had spoken. Turning back to the one who had spoken, Steve was able to lay eyes on a large, pink skinned alien with small, pointed ears, gnaw-like teeth, and red eyes, who was decked out in a Green Lantern suit that was mostly green, with what looked like green shoulder pads, and given his stature and current attitude, it was clear to Steve that this guy was clearly something of a soldier like him, but it seemed that he was not all that fond of sharing war stories at the moment. "John's one of the best of us, and the only reason his ring would be here right now, would be because someone took him down, which means you've got some explaining to do," the big guy snarled.

"Do you really think that his ring would bring me here if I hurt my own teammate," Steve retorted in disbelief before he moved his shield from his back to his arm.

"Maybe not, but I am thinking that you're withholding information as to what happened to him. I didn't stand up for him in a courtroom just to have him get replaced by some random Earth poozer," the big growled, and a minute later, he formed a hammer construct and charged at Steve, who managed to raise his shield in defense just before he was hit.

The sheer power behind the big guy's blow was a bit disorienting for Steve, but he had not survived World War II without being able to take a punch, so he was easily able to hold his ground before he finally managed to push the bigger guy off of him, while the pleas to stop from the first Lantern he encountered went unacknowledged. While the big guy was off balance from Steve being able to push him back, Cap took the initiative to rush in and slam his shield against the bigger alien in an uppercut, followed by slamming it back across his opponent's front a second later. Using the momentum of the second swing, Steve managed to spin himself around into a roundhouse kick, knocking the larger Lantern back a few paces, but that did not seem to slow down the big guy at all, as he immediately dismissed his construct in favor of firing a blast of energy directly at Cap. Thankfully, Steve was able to block the blast with his shield once again, but unfortunately, the blast was so powerful, that it ended up tearing away his civilian attire, revealing his Captain America uniform that was underneath once it was gone.

The large alien did not seem to pay much notice to the sudden change in attire, most likely because he did not know the significance behind it, and he quickly charged in again to try and hit the super soldier as hard as he could, only to be stopped by a massive, transparent barrier. "Stand down, Sergeant! Unless you want me to run you in for attacking one of the greatest living legends and heroes of another world," a new voice shouted.

Looking to the source allowed Steve to lay eyes on yet another Green Lantern, but unlike the first two, this one was obviously human. This particular Green Lantern also had a bit more green in his attire than Steve knew John to have, as the entirety of his torso was decked out in the color, while a pair of white gloves adorned his hands in place of the green armbands that John wore. Another key difference between this Lantern and John, aside from skin color, was the fact that he also wore a green, domino mask on his face, and his brown hair, while short, was not in a buzz cut like John normally had his. After the newly arrived Lantern had landed between Cap and his opponent, the larger Lantern leveled a glare at him and growled, "Mind giving me one good reason why I shouldn't tear this guy apart if it helps us find out what happened to John? I'd figured that if anyone would want to know what happened to him, it'd be you, Jordan."

"I do, Kilowog, but I also know that this guy isn't likely to have anymore answers than we do. If anything he actually has more questions. Besides, I used to read about him all the time, and he was the one thing in History Class that I actually liked learning about, so back off," Jordan retorted, and after he matched Kilowog's glare with a rather intense one of his own, Kilowog finally backed off, allowing Jordan to approach Steve with a hand extended. "Captain America, my name is Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, like John, and a member of the Green Lantern Honor Guard."

Steve finally grabbed the ring that had continued floating next to him until now and pocketed it in his belt before he accepted Hal's handshake and said, "Steve Rogers, Captain America."

"I figured," Hal nodded with an easy-going smile before he indicated the other two Lanterns to give them an introduction as well. "The big guy over there is Sergeant Kilowog, the guy that all Green Lanterns have to report to for boot camp training, and the Lantern you first met is Tomar-Re. Sorry if they gave you any trouble."

"Honestly, I'm just trying to figure out why I was brought here," Steve admitted. "One minute I'm just enjoying a peaceful day in New York, and the next thing I know, one of your rings, which is apparently John's is bringing me here. If he needed help, he could have just asked."

"If John sent his ring to bring you here, then he did ask for help; he just did it in the only way that he could," Kilowog revealed in a grave tone that never meant anything good.

Steve was easily able to tell that such a tone likely meant that his friend and teammate was in trouble, and he immediately fell into his soldier attitude when he asked, "Do you have any idea where he might be or what could've happened to him?"

"The last we heard from Green Lantern John Stewart, he was tasked with investigating a distress signal from a space craft that had crashed landed somewhere on the edge of Guardian Space. Afterwards, we lost all contact until his ring's signal suddenly reappeared on Earth, likely at the moment when it came into contact with you," Tomar-Re revealed.

"That can only mean that something must have attacked him, or that distress signal was a setup," Hal reasoned.

"Either way, the Guardians should probably hear about this," Kilowog told everyone, drawing a barely suppressed, yet silent groan from Hal in response. Kilowog then turned to Steve and said, "You'll probably have to come with us too, Poozer. After all, it's not every day that a non-Lantern shows up here uninvited, let alone one from Jordan's corner of the galaxy."

Steve was both curious and confused as to a lot of what was just said and had happened, but in the end, he figured it would be better to just roll with it for the moment and followed the three Lanterns as they led the way to the meeting chamber of the Guardians of Oa.

* * *

When Flash had told Steve that the Guardians of Oa were little blue men, the super soldier had honestly thought that the speedster was joking with him, which was understandable given the Flash's personality. Even when John had stepped up to try and insist that Flash was telling the truth, Cap had a hard time believing it, but now, since he was standing in the middle of the conference room where the Guardians normally met either amongst themselves or with their various Lanterns, he could most certainly say that he was now a true believer on that matter. The Guardians were indeed little blue men and women, each with white hair that indicated old age, which made sense given that they were said to have been around for many centuries, and they all wore red robes with the Green Lantern emblem on the center in a white circle. From what he could tell, Steve was able to easily pick up on an air of emotionless scrutiny and discipline that one would expect from someone who had been trained to be a soldier for their entire lives at bare minimum, and that really made him feel a bit uneasy in all honesty. Still, if they were able to provide them with the answers they were looking for, then it was most likely worth it in the end.

Of course, that did not mean that they were able to avoid the headache that came with addressing Steve's presence on Oa, which took a rather irritating amount of time before it was finally brought to a somewhat satisfactory end for both sides of the argument, but thankfully, Hal was able to assure the Guardians that Captain America was a respected ally of John's and one of Earth's greatest heroes, and both of those facts seemed to win over the Guardians a little bit. Of course, that just left one thing to deal with. "Do you know of anything that could tell us what happened to John," Hal finally asked in an effort to make sure that they could stay on track.

The Guardians seemed to exchange a few glances amongst themselves before one of them, namely the one who seemed to be the most strict of them, finally revealed, "We only know of this 2814 Lantern Hal Jordan: This is not the first Lantern to have disappeared."

"What do you mean," Kilowog asked in surprise.

"Recently, a number of Lanterns have actually gone missing, and they had all been patrolling the borders Guardian and Frontier space when they vanished," a female Guardian stated. "We did not want to raise any alarm since none of their rings had returned here or sought out new wielders, but…"

"That changed when John's ring suddenly showed up along with me," Steve concluded for the Guardian.

"Yes," the first Guardian lightly sneered. "Until now, there was no reason to believe that the operatives were offline."

"You mean dead," Hal pointedly corrected as he threw a small glare to that particular Guardian, easily telling Steve that the two did not normally get along with one another.

"Why didn't you tell us about this though," Kilowog cut in before his friend could say anything that would likely have gotten Hal into a great deal of trouble. "We should at least let one of the other Lantern Corps know. Maybe they could even help…well, maybe the Reds would be a little hesitant, but…"

"The reason we did not inform of you of this sooner was a decision that was made by the leaders of all the various Corps that we are allied with," the Guardian interrupted, shocking all three of the men before them. "This has not happened to Green Lanterns only, but to the Red Lanterns, Blue Lanterns, and the Star Sapphires as well. What do you think the overall reaction would have been if even one of these Corps all found out that their people were being attacked?"

"Pure chaos and eventually war, because everyone would likely think that one of the other Corps were responsible," Steve reasoned.

"You are correct, Captain," the female Guardian nodded. "More to the point, we had no way of knowing who was even behind these disappearances, or if they were the results of some form of attack, until now."

At that point, everyone glanced towards Steve in expectance, causing him to become confused and a bit edgy, thinking that they were probably about to accuse him of being behind this, until Hal quickly placed those worries to rest. "There's a chance that John left us a message on his ring before he sent it off to us, so if we analyze the last thing that it recorded…"

"We can find out what happened to him, and likely to the others," Steve finished for his fellow Earthling before pulling John's ring out of his belt and allowing Hal to hand it over to a Lantern that was working a very advanced looking computer.

Once the ring was in place, the Lantern working the computer quickly tapped a few controls, and eventually, an image of a rather weary looking John Stewart appeared before everyone as he seemed to raise the hand that he normally wore his ring on and spoke into the powerful jewelry. _"Get to Captain America,"_ the recording of John ordered. _"Safe…with him…Travel to Oa once he's been found, and relay the following message: Sinestro is not the only…now others…"_

That was when the message ended, and one could easily feel the intensity spiking in the room as worry crossed the features of everyone present. Eventually, Cap was the one who broke the silence when he asked, "What's a 'Sinestro'?"

"Not what, who," Hal corrected as the Lantern working the computer brought up an image of a man with dark purple skin, short black hair, pointed ears, and yellow eyes, decked out in a black and blue suit that seemed similar in design to that of a Green Lantern suit. "Sinestro was once a Green Lantern, one of the best of us actually, but eventually, he got a little power hungry and decided to betray us all."

"John and Hal were actually the ones who led the charge in stopping him the first time, but eventually, he found a way to regain some of his old powers by creating a new ring that uses yellow energy and managed to escape. Last anyone heard of him, he was stuck on Earth," Kilowog then finished for Hal.

"All the more reason to wonder how accurate this information is," the first Guardian to speak interrupted. "If Sinestro is truly stranded on Earth, then he would have very little hope of getting to any of the locations these attacks took place in on his own, and many of them happened at either the same time or within seconds of one another. No Lantern has the ability to be in multiple different locations at the same time."

"What about what John said about there being others," Steve pointed out. "Is it possible that Sinestro might have found a way to extend that power to others like how the Green Lanterns have?"

That drew a small silence from everyone in the room for a few minutes, as none of them had really considered such a thing for one reason or another, though the most likely reason was because none of them had wanted to think of such a case, given what Sinestro's new ring seemed to be powered by. Eventually, Hal broke the silence once again and said, "Sir, you may not have to notify all of the Corps, but you could at least send a small team of Lanterns to at least find some answers about all of this, and hopefully rescue both John and any other prisoners, assuming that they're still alive."

"We have already sent Lanterns to investigate the disappearances, as have the other Corps," the first Guardian protested.

"But did you ever send a team of them," Hal asked in retort.

From the look on that Guardian's face, it was rather clear that they had not, and that was all the reason for Kilowog to step in again and speak his mind. "Sir, I think that Jordan's on to something here. It makes sense that a team of Lanterns might come back with better results than a single Lantern alone would, since whoever's behind this seems to only target Lanterns that are alone."

The Guardians muttered amongst themselves for a minute before they finally looked back down at the super soldier and Lanterns before them and said, "Very well then. Lanterns Hal Jordan and Kilowog, we will send you both out to investigate this recent disappearance at once. There will be a ship waiting for you in the hangar that your old one had previously been kept in for when you are ready to depart. Be sure to drop off the Earth captain before you set out though."

"With all due respect, sir, I'm going with them," Steve immediately argued.

"This is not your concern," the Guardian started to say, only for the super soldier to interrupt him.

"John's my friend and comrade just as much as he is yours, so that makes it my concern, and if you think that I'm going to stand on the sidelines when I know that good people are in trouble, then you'll find that I'll be less than agreeable to the matter."

Steve and the Guardian held each others' glares for a few minutes, each daring the other to try and give in to their way of thinking, until finally, the rather irritating Guardian finally broke and just waved him off as a way of saying that he could do whatever he wanted to, and Captain America then turned to leave alongside both Hal and Kilowog. Once they were well away from the Guardians' chamber, Kilowog had to ask, "You're not seriously thinking of going with us, are you? In case you haven't noticed, you're going to need a lot more than that piece of tin on your arm to help in something like this."

Cap let the small jab at his trusted shield slide this time, opting instead to just smirk a little and say, "I'm well aware of that, soldier, that's why I made sure that I would have this on me for when it was necessary." Hal and Kilowog both looked over to the hand that Steve was holding out for them to see, and immediately found themselves in wide-eyed surprise at the sight of John's Lantern ring resting in the palm of Captain America's hand. After looking between the ring and the captain for another minute, Steve eventually said, "John did say that he thought his ring would be safe with me, so I figured that I should be the one to return it to him when we finally find him. Until then, I don't think it'll be too much of a problem if I borrowed it, would it?"

Hal and Kilowog both looked between themselves in uncertainty for a minute until Hal finally shrugged and said, "Good enough for me. Now, let's get going, and hope that whatever ship the Guardians are giving us is at least half as good as the _Interceptor_."

"The what," Steve asked in confusion.

"We'll explain on the way, Cap," Hal assured the veteran soldier. "And while we're at it, any chance you could tell us a few of those old war stories?"

Steve honestly had to smile a little in response to Hal's question, because it was clear that the journey would probably be rather quick if the entertainment they were likely to have was any indication.

* * *

It turned out that the ship that the three were given was actually a large, white ship with green markings and a large version of the Lantern battery acting as its main engine, and according to Hal and Kilowog it was also a nearly exact replica of their original ship, the _Interceptor_ , so they were not very surprised when they were told that it was called the _Interceptor II_. The only difference between this ship and the original was that it did not have the previous ship's original artificial intelligence nav-com, a fact that seemed to bring down the two Lanterns' mood a little when they mentioned this, but they quickly shook it off and set course for John's last location. Even at ultra warp though, the journey ended up taking a little time, but that time was easily filled by having Captain America tell the two a few of his old war stories, and about a few things that had happened since he had woken up from his seventy-year-long nap. While Hal was pretty excited hearing a first-hand account of some of the events that he had learned about from someone who had actually been there, Kilowog was, surprisingly even more impressed. Then again, Kilowog was a soldier like Cap, so hearing a few stories about the great battles and missions of a fellow soldier, and a war hero at that, was certainly something that really gained his interest.

Of course, there was still one thing in particular that Hal constantly kept bringing them back to after Cap had mentioned it the first time. "Wait, wait, wait; just a second. You're seriously telling me that Spider-Man, the New York web-slinging myth, is actually real," Hal repeated once again after he first heard about when Steve had met the wall crawler.

"Jordan, the guy has said as such five times already, so I'd think that's proof enough," Kilowog groaned at his friend's shock and disbelief.

"I'm surprised that you didn't know this," Cap told the human Lantern.

"Uh…I actually haven't able to get back to Earth all that often since I was made one of the Green Lantern Honor Guard, so forgive me if I'm a little behind on current events on my own planet," Hal defended.

Steve shrugged in acceptance of that, and turned around in his seat once again to gaze out the forward viewport at the colors of space flying past them as they traveled at ultra warp when Kilowog asked, "So, you got any other big war stories, Stars and Stripes?"

Steve had to smile a little at Kilowog's new nickname for him, which he would admit was much better than poozer, and then paused to think for a moment before he finally settled on something. "There was this one time that my partner Bucky and I had to infiltrate a highly secured HYDRA base on our own in order to get our hands on some vital intel that could have turned the war in the enemy's favor…"

"Uh actually, before you get any further, I've actually gotta ask why is it that most of your stories seem to involve this HYDRA group when your main opposition in the war was the Nazis," Kilowog interrupted.

Cap's face narrowed a little in response to that, and he eventually replied, "HYDRA was originally the Nazis' weapons development organization that operated in the shadows. They built a lot of what was highly advanced tech at the time before they eventually started to cut ties with the Nazi plans so that their leader, Red Skull, could pursue his own goals of world domination. Even after that point though, they were still a major threat, because it was almost always a challenge to keep them down for very long, hence the reason why their motto was what it was, and even still is now, despite the organization being destroyed."

"That motto being…"

"Cut off one head and two more take its place. That's HYDRA in a nutshell."

No one could really say anything more in response to that, but then again, what could they say? Hal knew from what he learned in various History classes that HYDRA was nothing good, and Kilowog now definitely understood that after hearing all of these different stories and what Cap just said, but hearing about how bad it was from someone who had been fighting against HYDRA firsthand all those years ago was still rather shocking. Eventually though, the rather tense silence was broken when the nav-com finally announced that they had reached their destination. After slowing the ship to a stop just a short distance away from the location of John's last position, the three stood up and moved to disembark from the ship, until Kilowog stopped them at the airlock.

"If you really plan on using that ring, then you might want to go ahead and put it on now," the Bolovaxian advised Captain America, and Steve silently nodded in response before he pulled John's ring out of his belt and slowly slipped it on his finger, showing that he was a bit nervous about whether or not he would be able to use it at all.

A minute after he had slipped the ring on, an explosion of green energy seemed to erupt from him, and when it faded, everyone could see that Cap's red, white, and blue suit had been changed into a Green Lantern uniform that was like a mix between Hal and Kilowog's. The only real differences between Captain America's Lantern suit and that of the two actual Lanterns' was that Cap wore a mask that was designed in the same way as his helmet, with the letter "A" still being present on the front of the mask in white, and the Green Lantern insignia was actually inside of a five-point star as opposed to a circle. Steve's shield was really the only thing that had remained the same after the transformation had faded, but all-in-all, it was still impressive enough for Kilowog and Hal to both give a smile of approval when they saw his new look. With that final matter settled, the three then opened the ship's main airlock and flew out into space, each with a full body shield that would allow them to survive in the vacuum of space without worry.

The three each spent a few minutes scanning the area in every way that they could, only to find very little sign of whatever could have happened to John besides the rumble that could only have come from a battle. They easily found the stranded space craft that had sent out a distress signal, or what was left of it at least, but there was no sign of any of the ship's crew, which likely meant that John had managed to get whoever had survived to safety before he was attacked. Aside from that though, they could not really pick up very many traces of what had happened. Still, the longer they stayed there, the more anxious Hal and Kilowog seemed to get almost as if they were afraid something was going to jump out at them at any second. Of course, Captain America was beginning to feel just as anxious, but it did not seem to be to the same degree as the other two, and that was starting to worry him.

After another minute of watching the two Lanterns acting like they were nervous about something, Cap finally asked, "Are you two alright? You seem like something is bothering you."

Hal actually jumped a little when Steve had spoken up, most likely because they were all just working in silence for a while, but he quickly regained himself and replied, "Yeah, I'm fine, Cap. Something about this place just feels…off, and yet it's kind of familiar at the same time."

"Yeah, I'm getting the same feeling," Kilowog stated. "It kinda reminds me of those yellow crystals we encountered a few years ago that seemed to cancel out our rings' power."

That caught Steve's attention, because anything that felt similar to something that weakened a person or the tool that they used and needed at the current moment was definitely something to be concerned about. Admittedly, he was curious about the exact details behind what the two Lanterns were talking about, but such details were better left to be explained later. All Steve needed to know for right now was that the two were feeling something that reminded them of a substance that weakened their rings, but before he could say anything on the matter, Hal's ring suddenly started flashing and emitting a soft beeping, which prompted the masked human Lantern to raise the emerald ring up just in time for the ship's AI to report something to him over what Steve could only assume to be a radio frequency. _"Green Lantern Hal Jordan, there is an incoming distress signal from a nearby Star Sapphire who has been identified as the primary Star Sapphire of Earth. Further scans would indicate that said Sapphire is currently under attack by an unknown enemy force."_

When he heard the name Star Sapphire, Steve's thoughts had immediately gone to the criminal that Luthor had hired a few weeks back, but when he saw the look on Hal's face at the news, he realized that the ring was probably referring to another member of the Sapphires, so he was not surprised when Hal ordered everyone back to the ship as quickly as possible. A few minutes later, the group was flying towards the source of the distress signal, clearly hoping that they would finally get some answers on what had been happening to the missing Lanterns, and upon arriving at their next destination, they soon received just the answers they were searching for. The only downside was that it was a sight that did not sit well with any of them, but just slightly more so for Hal and Kilowog than for Steve. Just a short distance from where the ship had come to a stop, was a human woman with long, black hair that reached her back, decked out in a pink vest with a white collar, thigh-high pink boots, and long gloves, and she was currently fighting a pair of aliens that were decked out in what appeared to be outfits similar to those of a typical Green Lantern, but the main difference between the Green Lanterns' uniform and these was the fact that these were a bright yellow and black, while the insignia on their chests was a black circle with intricate markings which barely formed the image of a strange-looking lantern.

"What the knartz," Kilowog roared. "Since when are there Yellow Lanterns?!"

"I don't know, but right now, I'm more concerned about the fact that they're attacking Carol, so less gawking and more shooting, Sergeant," Hal ordered, and Kilowog did not hesitate for an instant to fire the _Interceptor II_ 's weapons at the attacking Lanterns. The first salvo of green energy blasts did not really register with the two Yellow Lanterns at first, but when the next few salvos came, they immediately began to pull back a little, giving Hal a chance to set the ship on autopilot while leading the charge out of the ship and over to the Star Sapphire he had identified as Carol.

"Hal, am I glad to see you," Carol gasped in relief as she continued firing bursts of purple energy blasts from her ring.

"Honestly, I wish we could've met up over different circumstances, Babe," Hal shrugged with a calming smile while he raised a shield in front of their group. It did not do much good, as a few hits from the Yellow Lanterns quickly put some cracks into the shield, surprising both Kilowog and Hal, since it would normally take a lot more than a few, small blasts to so much as dent a Green Lantern construct, even if it was a blast from another Lantern.

"Well, that certainly makes two of us, considering how these guys are hammering down on your shield," Carol commented as the cracks in Hal's shield continued to grow larger in both size and number. That was when Steve jumped in front of the group with his shield forward, thinking that infusing the Green Lantern ring's power with his already indestructible shield would give them something of a stronger defense when Hal's shield finally came down, while Kilowog moved to create a harness with multiple weapons on it to try and drive the mystery, enemy Lanterns back. While Carol was not too shocked at seeing Kilowog, the sight of Cap did draw a bit more of her attention, and it immediately led her to ask, "So who's the new guy? Please tell me that something didn't happen to John."

"That's actually something we were investigating when we got your call, but he's really more of a temporary Lantern, to be totally honest," Hal revealed as he strained under the pressure of trying to keep his shield up.

"Maybe we should save the introductions for later, soldier. Right now, you need to concentrate on keeping that barrier up for as long as you can. My shield may be strong even on its own, but it's not exactly ideal cover for our current situation," Captain America cut in.

Hal just grunted a small response as he strained to focus as much of his energy as he could into his shield while Carol and Kilowog continued trying to take a more offensive stance against the attackers, but eventually, Hal's shield came crashing down, and if it had not be for Carol using her ring to create a hand construct to catch him, Hal would likely have been sent flying all the way to the nearest planet as a result of his shield's collapse. At that point, Captain America sprang into action by charging forward with his shield blocking most of the enemy fire, and once he was close enough, he slammed his trusted tool into the closest Yellow Lantern with a hard swing of his arm, before he then tossed the vibranium disk with a hard snap of the same arm, sending it flying towards the second. The second Yellow Lantern easily swayed to the side in order to avoid Cap's attack, but he had not expected Captain America to use his borrowed ring to infuse the shield with Green Lantern energy, and then direct the shield back towards its original target, instantly striking the Lantern in the back once it had reached him. Captain America continued using his ring to direct his shield around the battlefield while he himself spun through the starry skies of Space as he landed a few hard punches and blasts of his own against whichever one of the two enemy Lanterns was closest to him, while occasionally throwing out a few energy blasts as well.

As Captain America continued to unleash hell on these unsuspecting attackers, the other three found that they could only stare and watch, partially because they were worried that if they were not careful in their attacks, they would accidentally hit Cap, and partially because they were just so awe-struck by the ferocity and skill behind the super soldier's fighting abilities. For someone who had never fought with any variety of Lantern powers before, Steve was displaying a very special range of skill that none of them had ever seen, including Kilowog, who had seen the fighting style of almost every Green Lantern in existence to date. Admittedly, Cap's abilities with the ring was a little more on the basic, amateur side, but he more than made up for that with the skills and abilities he already possessed on his own. Sadly, his advantage did not last, and one of the two Yellow Lanterns finally managed to break out of the assault that the super soldier had them cornered into, and that was enough to draw the other three back into action once again.

Just before they could though, everyone suddenly found themselves pausing in confusion when they all heard a new voice suddenly reciting what Steve could only assume was one of the Lantern oaths that each of the individual Lantern Corps possessed. He had never actually heard any of them himself, but when Cap heard this particular oath, he had to admit that it certainly had something of an appeal to him. "In fearful day, in raging night. With strong hearts full our souls ignite. When all seems lost in the war of light, look to the stars, for hope burns bright!"

As soon as that last word was spoken, a burst of blue energy seemed to wash over the area, and once it had reached them, the currently present Green Lanterns suddenly started to glow with very intense version of their usual Lantern aura, almost as though they had become encased in a green blaze, while their eyes glowed a very intense shade of emerald. While Cap's own aura was not as great as Hal and Kilowog's, it was still present, which was rather surprising for the super soldier. Hal and Kilowog on the other hand both had to smirk in response to the feeling before they each unleashed a much more powerful blast from their rings than the ones that they had released before, causing the two hostile Lanterns to evade the blasts before they were engulfed in them. Even after evading the blasts though, the two were not able to counterattack, as they were quickly put on the defensive when Captain America and the three good Lanterns unleashed a new-found burst of energy on them.

"Man, I always love it when I feel this," Kilowog happily roared in excitement as he enhanced his current construct with bigger guns than the ones he already had.

"Well then, remind me to thank Saint Walker and Ganthet when we see them next for sending us some Blue Lantern reinforcements," Hal told his friend.

"Or you could just thank the Lantern that came all this way to help you, Hal Jordan," the voice that had spoken the Blue Lantern oath said, prompting the two to turn to its source just in time to see said Blue Lantern as he approached their side while firing a few blasts of his own, and when they did see him, they both had to gasp a little in shock.

The Blue Lantern in question was decked out in the typical attire of a Blue Lantern, with the only distinguishing difference between a normal Blue Lantern and this one being the helmet on his head with rounded horns which seemed to fold back over his head before extending downwards. The only visible part of his body was his face, which showed he had pale white skin and black tattoo markings on said face, while his eyes were bright blue. While Steve was just trying to process the fact that he had now seen members of four different Lantern Corps, counting the members of the mysterious Yellow Corps, Hal and Kilowog were still in shock of the fact that this particular Blue Lantern was someone they had not seen in years. "Razer," Hal finally gasped. "Razer, is that you?"

"You sound surprised, Hal Jordan," Razer smirked in response as he continued firing on the mystery Lanterns. Hal and Kilowog both gave a smirk of their own in response to Razer's comment and returned their attention to the enemy before them, but they did not have to do so for very long. A short time after Razer had arrived, the two mystery Lanterns finally seemed to realize that they were not likely to win this fight and turned to fly away as fast as they could, which was rather considerable since they seemed to just rocket out of the area before any of the five could move to chase after them, and by the time they had, they were already long gone.

With the crisis of the battle now averted, Hal and Kilowog both turned to the Lanterns of their allied Corps along with Captain America, with masked Green Lantern wrapping Carol in a hug as quick as a flash as he said, "I'm glad you're okay, Carol, and Razer, it's really good to see you again."

"Likewise, Hal Jordan, and for you as well, Kilowog," Razer nodded with a small smile.

"Okay, looks kinda like Razer, definitely smells like Razer, but you ain't acting at all like Razer, and never mind the new duds. What've you done with the angry guy," Kilowog asked the Blue Lantern.

"For the most part, he is gone. Shortly after my departure from Oa when we last spoke, a Blue Lantern ring appeared before me, granting me the chance to do some real good in the universe with a power far less dangerous than anger, and since that time, I had been a member of the Blue Lantern Corps alongside Saint Walker and Brother Warth," Razer explained.

"Well that's good to hear, buddy, because I think we could use your help," Hal requested.

"You do not even need to ask. I was actually rather surprised that you were also investigating the origin of this new Lantern Corps that had been attacking."

That threw everyone for a bit of a loop, and they were all soon exchanging small glances of confusion in silence until Captain America finally spoke up and said, "We were actually trying to locate a missing Green Lantern when we picked up a distress signal from…Carol, is it?" When Carol nodded in reply to Steve's question, the super soldier continued, "We didn't even know about these Yellow Lanterns until now."

"I was out here investigating the disappearance of one our Sapphires as well when I was suddenly attacked," Carol then added.

"Either way, it would seem that our two investigations may be one in the same," Razer reasoned. He then turned to Steve and asked, "If I may though, who are you?"

Carol quickly turned to throw a questioning look that reminded everyone she had asked the same question earlier, at which point, Hal came forward and said, "I can answer that, if nobody minds." When no one said anything in protest to this, Hal announced, "Carol, Razer, this is Captain Steve Rogers, better known on Earth as Captain America. Cap, this is Carol Ferris of the Star Sapphires and Ferris Aircraft, and Razer, former member of the Red Lantern Corps and, apparently, now a member of the Blue Lanterns."

While Razer quirked an eyebrow in response to Hal's introduction of the super soldier, Carol's eyes widened as she gasped in shock before asking, "You…can't be serious. I thought Captain America had died back in the Forties."

"That was…some poor reporting, ma'am," Steve stated. "I actually spent about seventy years frozen in arctic waters until the Justice League found me, and I've been fighting as one of them ever since."

Before anyone could comment further on that matter, Kilowog decided that they needed to steer the conversation back onto its original course and said, "Hey, I love a little meet-and-greet, but how about we save story time for after we compare what notes we have on what the knortz is going on here?"

"I agree," Razer nodded. "If you all wouldn't mind joining me back on Odym, I can tell you everything that we've learned since we first encountered these Yellow Lanterns. Also, I believe that there is also someone there who would be very glad to see you both again, Hal Jordan and Kilowog."

Everyone exchanged another set of confused looks at that last part, but decided that they would leave it alone for now since they would receive a more proper explanation behind that when they reached the Blue Lantern home world, and quickly piled into the _Interceptor II_ so that they could journey to Odym, each hoping that they would get some more proper answers after they had arrived.

* * *

After boarding the _Interceptor II_ once again and setting course for Odym, Steve decided to remove his borrowed Lantern ring so that he would not be wasting any of more of its power than had already been used; allowing Razer and Carol to both see his Captain America suit once he had. While Razer did not seem to give much of an indication on whether or not he had an opinion of the suit, Carol was certainly awestruck when she did see it. Of course, that moment of awe was short lived when the ship finally landed on the Blue Lantern home world and everyone who had not been there before were immediately gazing in awe of the lush, peaceful planet. Unlike Oa, which was more like a massive metropolis with its massive, various buildings, Odym had a great deal of vegetation and animal life, and it seemed to be much more like a place that many nature lovers would consider to be the Promised Land. After letting Carol and Steve gaze around at the wondrous world for another minute or so, Razer began to lead the group away from the ship to where he had set up his own residence.

The young Blue Lantern's residence was nothing very impressive, given that it was merely a small hut made out of various rocks and branches, but it was certainly nice enough of a place for one to consider home, much like a log cabin did for many of the early American settlers. Of course, most of the group did not have their attention on Razer's quaint housing, but rather, on the young woman who emerged from the door when they approached. The woman in question seemed to have green skin, bright, light blue eyes, and shoulder length, white blonde hair, while her clothing consisted of what appeared to be a tight, blue tank-top, blue gloves that reached her elbows, and long, tight blue pants. What was easily noticeable was that the young woman's tank-top had a black circle in the center with the Blue Lantern insignia emblazoned inside of it in a shinning emerald color, but Steve had actually taken more notice of how all of his current teammates aside from Razer seemed to freeze or tense up in some way when they laid on eyes on this green skinned woman.

"Welcome home, my love," the woman said in a kind, caring voice as she and Razer wrapped each other in their arms. After releasing Razer from her hug, the woman then turned their guests and seemed to smile even more brightly as she said, "It is very good to see you again, Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Sergeant Kilowog, and despite the circumstances of our last meeting, I am quite happy to see you as well, Carol Ferris."

Carol had been the one to have tensed up as though she was suddenly expecting a fight, but she seemed to relax a little when she heard the woman's statement. Hal and Kilowog on the other hand continued to stare at the woman in shock, almost as though they had seen a ghost, until Hal finally managed to regain his voice and barely whisper, "Aya? Aya is that really you?"

"I can assure you that I am indeed who I appear to be," the woman nodded happily, and a minute later, Kilowog was racing over to wrap Aya in a somewhat unexpected bear hug. "Am I to understand that you are overjoyed to see me, Sergeant Kilowog?"

"That would be putting it mildly kid," Kilowog admitted after he had set Aya down so that Hal could give her a hug as well. "We all thought you were gone forever the last time we saw you!"

"I assure you that you were not alone in that belief. Had it not been for Razer, I would likely have remained in the dormant state I had transferred myself into after releasing the virus that had destroyed most of the Manhunter robots."

"Kinda wish you had managed to shut down all of them, considering what happened a short while back," Hal muttered. "More importantly, what's with the new look? I thought you always wanted to be a Green Lantern."

"Originally, I had thought that the best way for me to be of greater assistance to our team and the greater galaxy was to become a Green Lantern, but after the events that preceded my supposed destruction, I decided that I would better serve the galaxy by simply joining any Lantern Corp that was dedicated to good," Aya explained. "As for my new physical form, what you see is actually a synthezoid body that I had created during my time as the Aya-Monitor in the event that something would go wrong in my plans. It was originally meant to serve as a backup for myself so that I could carry on with my rather foolish and misguided plans, but after I had released my virus, I quickly discovered that I could transfer myself into a nearby computer system that would lead me into this body. I am now as close to a being of flesh and blood as I ever could hope to be. As I had stated earlier though, the only reason I am even present and active, is because of Razer."

"We figured that it would be better to keep her continued existence a secret, so I had asked Saint Walker and Ganthet to not inform the Guardians after we had come back to Odym," Razer then revealed. "That is why we did not tell you about this sooner. Though we do wish that we could have informed you of Aya's safe return before now."

"Hey, relax Red. We get it," Kilowog reassured the two.

Everyone then looked over to Carol to see how she would react, considering that the last time she and Aya had met the former AI of the original _Interceptor_ had forced her into a battle to the end against Atrocitous, and eventually, Carol finally walked over and gave Aya a smile as she patted the younger woman's shoulder and said, "I'll admit that I'm not too thrilled about what happened during our first meeting, but Hal had assured me that you weren't yourself at the time, so I guess I can let bygones be bygones."

"Thank you, Carol Ferris, and I am truly sorry for my actions when we last met," Aya nodded in thanks.

Carol just waved Aya's apology off, saying that it was water under the bridge now, and it was at that point that Steve finally reminded everyone that he was still there by giving a small cough that grabbed everyone's attention. "Oh, sorry Cap," Hal quickly said. "Forgot you were here for a minute. Aya, this is…"

"Captain Steven Rogers, better known as Captain America of Earth, one of your home planet's greatest defenders of peace during the era known as World War II," Aya finished for Hal. When she saw everyone looking at her in surprise for knowing that information, Aya immediately explained, "I was formerly the AI of the _Interceptor_ , and during my early days of having a physical form, I used the ship's various resources and databases to assist me in better understanding various cultures and references so that I would not be confused by anything that was said."

Everyone nodded in acceptance of that, and Cap then took the time to approach and say, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Aya, but I wish this were just a social visit."

"He's right. We were looking for a missing Green Lantern, John Stewart, when we ran into Carol and Razer, which also included a run in with what seems to be a new Lantern Corp. Razer said that the Blue Lanterns had a run-in with these guys before, so we'd like to compare notes," Hal told Aya in a serious tone that said that they would have time for catching up later.

Aya was able to recognize the tone in Hal's voice in an instant, and quickly replied, "A well chosen action, Hal Jordan. The first encounter the Blue Lanterns had with these Yellow Lanterns was some time ago, but the first time any of them were able to report back with any information about them was when Saint Walker and Razer returned from shadowing a pair of recruits on their first mission out in space."

"We always tend to shadow the newer recruits on their first times out, since they are usually rather green in many areas, but we only intervene if it's absolutely necessary," Razer explained. "I only wish that Saint Walker and I had done so a little more quickly. Maybe then, we would have been able to save at least one of them."

"You're not saying that these guys took down two Blues that easily, are you," Kilowog asked.

"Not exactly," Razer revealed. "They did not kill either of them, but instead knocked them both out, encased them inside of a construct, and then removed their rings before disappearing in a fashion similar to that of how those Yellow Lanterns we encountered earlier had."

"So if that's what happened to the other missing Lanterns, then there's a chance that they're still alive," Captain America reasoned.

"The probability of that being true is a rather small likelihood, Captain America," Aya stated. "This attack that Razer mentioned actually happened approximately three months ago. Since that time, Saint Walker and Razer have had most of the Blue Lantern Corp remain well within our region of space while they each investigated any leads regarding these unknown Lanterns."

"I had actually been on my way back here after receiving some recent information when I picked up Carol Ferris' distress call," Razer then finished.

"Tell me that the information you had picked up was good," Kilowog pleaded.

"It is nothing very specific, but it is still better than anything we had learned since we started looking," Razer admitted. "For starters, I learned of which region of space these supposed Lanterns have been sighted at the most often, and more importantly, I also learned that the former Green Lantern, Sinestro, had been sighted there quite a bit."

"Given that Sinestro uses a power ring that seems to run on the same type of energy that these new guys were using, it would make sense that he would have a part in this somewhere," Kilowog growled as he punched a fist into his palm.

"But that still begs the question as to whether or not he's the true mastermind behind all of this," Steve pointed out.

"Why wouldn't he be," Hal asked. "Sinestro has always thought himself fit to be the guy in charge, hence another part of the reason he was kicked out of the Green Lanterns, so it would make sense that he was in charge of this new group."

"Maybe, but you can never be too sure of these things," Steve pointed out, easily remembering a number of times when he encountered a HYDRA base leader who was just a stand-in for the base's real commander as he did. At that point, Steve remembered something else that he had learned back on Oa, and quickly pointed it out to the others. "And don't forget that according to the Guardians, Sinestro is supposed to be stranded on Earth, so how could he even be so far out into Space if that is the case?"

"There's only one way we're going to know for sure, and that's to go to this place and beat the answers out of whoever's around to give 'em," Kilowog reasoned.

"I may not be someone who fights with rage in his heart, but I still do not enjoy sitting by on the sidelines when there's a chance I could help, so I hope you don't mind if I join you in this little adventure," Razer stated.

"Any help's welcome, Razer," Hal immediately accepted.

"Then I would like to offer my own assistance as well, Hal Jordan," Aya requested, though Steve could detect a small hint of pleading in her voice when she did speak.

Hal just smiled in response and said, "It wouldn't be the same without you, Aya, but are you even able to fight like this?"

"While my current physical form does not possess all of the same capabilities as my previous one, it is still more than capable of fighting if the need should arise."

"That's good enough for me," Steve stated. "Welcome aboard soldier."

"Well, if there isn't anyone else that will be joining us, let's go save the galaxy, boys and girls," Carol smirked, and with that, the team immediately returned to the ship so that they could set out for their next destination, and whatever terrors that would await them when they arrived.

* * *

It turned out that the team's destination was a place that none of the Lanterns were too keen on traveling to, at least in the case of the Green ones, as it was a planet that was able to produce a special mineral that could neutralize the power of the Green Lantern rings. Such a thing was especially a concern in regards to Aya, since she was once made of the green energy that the rings ran off of, but Aya assured the team that her new synthezoid body was well protected from the harmful effects of the mineral. Of course, it also answered the question as to how Sinestro was likely creating more rings like his own, assuming he could transform the mineral into an energy source that was similar to any other Lantern power battery, but there was still one last matter left to worry about, and that was how they would investigate the planet without anyone knowing that they were there.

"Can't we just use some type of drone or something to scan the planet," Steve asked as they continued brainstorming ideas on the bridge while making sure that the ship was well out of range from any scanners that the planet known as Qward would have.

"Nope, afraid not," Hal replied. "The _Interceptor II_ isn't exactly equipped for scouting missions like that, so we don't have any probes."

"Well, maybe we could make one out of some of Aya's old spare body parts," Kilowog suggested.

"Your proposed action would be viable were it not for the fact that the spare parts you are referring to were all on the original _Interceptor_ , and had subsequently been destroyed along with the ship," Aya pointed out.

"Why don't we just go down there and look around," Razer finally asked.

"Kid, there's no way for us to know if we'd even be able to get back up here if we go down there, since the place makes those weird yellow rocks that mess with our rings," Kilowog reminded his old friend.

"Not all of our rings, just the Green Lantern rings, and the fact that these Yellow Lanterns removed the rings of the Blue Lantern recruits they captured likely means that Razer and Carol's rings should still work if they get near that stuff," Captain America pointed out.

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Hal immediately insisted. "There's no way we're just sending Carol and Razer down there on their own with barely any chance of real backup."

"You won't be sending just the two of them, because I'll be going as well," Steve replied.

"What part of 'rocks that neutralize Green Lantern rings' did you miss, Stars and Stripes," Kilowog inquired.

"Hey, I'd been fighting the good fight without one of your snazzy rings for a long time now, and I've been standing up to guys that were bigger than me in some way or another for even longer. I can handle myself," Steve reassured the Bolovaxian Lantern.

"I concur with Captain Rogers' suggestion," Aya suddenly said. "If he were to travel to the surface with Razer and Carol, it would also allow us to determine how safe it would be for you to use your powers while on Qward's surface, as he is currently using Green Lantern John Stewart's ring at this time."

Everyone had to admit that Aya had a point in that regard, so Hal finally nodded in acceptance of this plan and let the three move to depart, but only after he stopped Carol long enough to tell her to be careful, earning him a quick peck and a gentle smile from her once he had. Once the airlock had opened, Carol formed a protective sphere around herself and Cap so that she would be able to get Steve to the planet without him using John's ring, and the three were soon on the surface of Qward. Looking around gave the three a feeling of being in a massive factory with sickly yellow lights on every building they saw, and rivers of lava bellow them. A quick glance at some of the nearby inhabitants, who they were happy to say had not noticed their approach, allowed them to see that the people of this planet appeared to be an insectoid species of some type, and they all seemed to be hard at work on a variety of machines or other devices that appeared to be necessary for keeping the planet running. Another glance allowed the three to spot some of the Yellow Lanterns descending towards the Qwardians, and then start lashing out at them with some form of whip-like constructs, indicating that these people were no more than slave labor to these Lanterns.

If Razer still had his old Red Lantern powers, he was sure that he would not be able to keep himself from igniting an aura of rage around him in response to seeing such torture, but thankfully, his training with the Blue Lanterns and Saint Walker allowed him to keep as calm as possible. Carol and Cap were both just as upset by seeing such brutal torture, but they too managed to reign it in for the good of the mission, and they all quickly moved off to an area that was just far enough out of the way for Cap to test whether or not he could use John's Green Lantern ring while planetside. When he slipped the ring on and found that his Green Lantern suit formed around him without any trouble, and that each of the ring's other abilities seemed to be in working order, Cap quickly removed the ring so that he would avoid any chances of being attacked. After all, two Lanterns moving about in secret on this planet was already likely to draw them enough trouble if they were caught, and given Sinestro's compulsive nature of collecting the rings of Green Lanterns he had felled, none of them were willing to take the chance of losing John's ring right now.

After contacting the others on the _Interceptor II_ and then receiving word from Hal that he and Kilowog would join them down on the planet the minute any of them picked up the slightest sign of trouble, the three moved on to start seeing if they could locate any of the missing Lanterns. What they did not know, was that one of the Qwardian people had noticed them out of the corner of his eye, and his curiosity had led him to see the three just before Cap had removed John's Lantern ring and pocketed it in his belt. Once the three were well away, the Qwardian ran over to the nearest Yellow Lantern and said, "Sir, we have intruders! A woman in pink and violet, and a pair of men in blue. One of the men was carrying a shield on his arm."

The Lantern scowled at this news, and immediately smacked the Qwardian for telling him this before he turned to his comrade and said, "Let Sinestro and Scar know about this as quickly as possible. We might as well give them a proper, Sinestro Corp welcome to Qward."

* * *

As the three made their way further across the volatile planet, Steve, Carol, and Razer could not help but grow more and more disgusted and disturbed by the planet and its various different residents for one reason or another. While some of those feelings were attributed to the Qwardians themselves, a vast majority of them were due to the treatment that the alien race was receiving from the Yellow Lanterns. At one point, Razer even ventured a little closer to one of the Qwardians and discovered that they were all outfitted with a type of collar, and given how these Yellow Lanterns treated the group they had seen earlier, it did not take much guesswork to figure out what the collar was for.

At one point, the levels of disgust were clearly starting to become too much for some of them, so in an attempt to distract themselves from such things for a moment, Steve looked to his two companions and asked, "So how did you two end up as members of your respective corps? I know that with the Green Lanterns, the ring typically choose someone with a strong will, but I'm curious about how the two of you got where you are now."

Carol and Razer exchanged a quick look, both clearly knowing what Steve was trying to do, but they still decided to answer anyway, with Carol starting off. "I guess you could say that in a lot of ways, you can actually thank Hal for my being a Star Sapphire. You see, while Green Lanterns utilize will power and Blue Lanterns use that of hope, the Star Sapphires harness the power of love. Our rings typically choose someone who has suffered both great love and great loss, but they have also been known to choose someone who is also the true love of a certain Lantern; normally a Green or Blue Lantern to be exact. I was chosen because Hal and I share a very strong love for one another, but the first time I became a Star Sapphire, the transformation left me a little disoriented and caused me to become overwhelmed by the power. Thankfully, Hal helped me come to my senses, and I gave up the ring since I didn't want to be out in space fighting evil when Hal was already dealing with a war against the Red Lanterns. Well that, and the fact that back then, the Star Sapphires were not exactly the force for good that they are now."

Steve immediately made a note to ask John to tell him exactly how many different Lanterns there were after this was over, and then asked, "What changed your mind?"

"Well…there was a certain event that caused the Star Sapphires to request my help, and during that time, a dear friend of mine and Hal's had sacrificed herself so that she could save us both. Part of it was due to the fact that she had a bit of a crush on Hal, sure, but the fact that she was willing to give up so much to help us was all the reason for me to accept my ring permanently so that I could help out around the galaxy as much as Hal and the other Lanterns of good corps do," Carol finished. She then had to chuckle a little before she added, "Of course, now I can't help but wonder how Hal ever managed juggling his Lantern responsibilities with his old job as one of the pilots at my family's company from time to time."

Steve had to laugh a little in response to that last bit as well before he turned to Razer, signaling that he still wanted to hear the Blue Lantern's answer as well. "Like Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan played a significant part in my becoming a Lantern for good, but I suppose that Kilowog also played…something of a part in it as well. This was before the Blue Lanterns had even been started though, and I was originally a member of the Red Lanterns. In my time with the Reds, I had committed many…unforgivable deeds, but Hal Jordan and Kilowog saw something in me that led them to believe that I could do some real good with my old powers and they let me join their rather small crew as a result. Of course, Aya was the one who played the greatest role in my redemption, as she showed a belief in me that neither of the other two ever displayed even at times when I was not deserving of it. In point of fact, Aya is also part of the reason why I finally became worthy enough to shed my old Red Lantern ring in place of my current Blue Lantern power."

Steve knew that there was likely more to Razer's story than what he had said, but such things were going to have to wait, as they finally came upon a large facility where a lot of the various Yellow Lanterns were gathered around, and from what they could tell, it seemed as though these Lanterns were acting as guards for the building. This indicated that the building was likely worth investigating, and the three quickly started to make their way inside. Carol and Razer had offered to give Steve a lift in, since they would likely be able to get in more quickly if they flew in from the roof, but Steve politely refused, saying he would manage on his own. The two quickly found that to be true after they had slipped in, as when they did, they found Captain America leaning against the wall like he had been waiting for them to come for some time, much to their surprise.

"How did you…" Razer started to ask.

"This isn't the first high-security facility that I've snuck into, soldier," Cap replied in full simplicity.

The two Lanterns just let the matter drop and moved on, but they did not have to look around the place for long to realize what it was. The various different cells with decaying remains immediately told them that this place was a prison, and from a few glances inside, they quickly spotted the remains of the Lanterns that had gone missing from each of the various corps. Thankfully, Razer and Carol found some Blue Lanterns and Star Sapphires that were still alive, but very weak as well, and while the two worked at freeing their fellow corps members, Captain America moved to inform Hal, Kilowog, and Aya of their discovery. Just before he opened the communication though, a small groan drew his attention to a nearby cell, instantly allowing him to lay eyes on his fellow Leaguer, John Stewart. Upon running over to the cell his friend was locked inside of, Steve could see that John's Green Lantern attire had faded away, likely due to the fact that he was not currently wearing his ring, and he was now decked out in a yellow turtleneck shirt, a black coat, grey pants, and black shoes. Working quickly, Steve smashed the lock the cell door with the edge of his shield, and immediately moved in to unshackle John from the chains that were binding him.

At that point, John stirred back into consciousness and looked up to see Cap standing over him. "I guess you…found my ring, huh," John muttered, quietly.

"Take it easy, soldier. We're getting you out of here," Cap reassured his friend.

"No…You shouldn't…have come," John said, drawing a confused look from Captain America. "They probably already know…you're here. This was a trap."

"Of course it was a trap, but that's no reason to not at least let them think that they actually had a chance of succeeding," a new voice interrupted, drawing everyone's attention towards it until their gazes landed directly upon Sinestro and what appeared to be a member of the Guardians of Oa. The only differences between this Guardian and the ones that Steve had already met was that this one was decked out in yellow robes with a black circle with the now familiar, strange-looking, lantern-like symbol in the center and the rather large scar on right side of their face.

"You," Razer snarled once he spotted the Guardian, and he quickly raised his ring towards the blue alien, with Carol following shortly after on instinct while Steve just used John's ring to contact the others on the _Interceptor_.

"Don't sound so surprised. After all, it was because of your foolishness in keeping that machine alive that I'm here now, and it was also that which drove me to free Sinestro from remaining trapped on that backwater planet the galaxy calls Earth," the Guardian told Razer.

"I'm not the one who tried to kill Aya when the plan was supposed to be to stop her long enough for us to talk her back to her senses, Scar," Razer retorted, gaining a shocked look from Cap the minute he said that, and prompting him to bring his shield to bare a second later.

"A machine does not have any senses other than their programming," Scar tried to insist.

"Maybe not a typical machine, but Aya is definitely not a normal machine at all," Carol said, adding her two cents to the argument.

"Such things do not matter now," Sinestro said, cutting into the argument, and causing everyone to turn to him once again. It was at this point that the group finally noticed that Sinestro was not wearing his usual blue and black outfit, but instead was wearing a similar yellow and black uniform that the other Yellow Lanterns were wearing. The yellow on his shirt split into three, downwards pointing points, while a pair of yellow boots adorned his feet, yellow armbands were around his forearms, and a silver belt was fastened around his waist. The final touch was silver and black version of the Lantern insignia that they had seen all of the newest Lanterns wearing right in the center of his chest.

At this point, Steve figured that he would need to buy their reinforcements some time to get to their location, and there was really only one way to do so: by keeping the enemy talking. "This wasn't the only part of the trap, was it? You had this whole thing set up the moment you captured John, didn't you?"

"Well, it seems that the human is smart," Sinestro remarked, mockingly. "Yes, this was indeed a trap. I knew the moment that John Stewart sent his ring away from him that there was very little chance our Sinestro Corps would remain a secret for any longer, so I figured I would stage a few things that would ultimately draw Hal Jordan and all of the most powerful members of my greatest oppositions right into our hands. Of course, I was expecting Saint Walker, Hal Jordan, and Kilowog to be here, not a former Red Lantern and some random Earth man."

"You should really be careful, Sinestro. This particular Earth man is a lot more than what he seems," Carol snarled in a small moment of friendly warning, knowing that Sinestro would likely just brush it off.

"I'm sure. After all, a man with only a shield would always be someone to be concerned about," Sinestro said in full sarcasm, proving Carol's suspicions to be true in an instant. "Still, I'm sure that with so many Lanterns going missing, it will only be a matter of time before the real threats arrive, but by then it will already be too late."

"Why capture those Lanterns in the first place though? So you could add to your slave labor camps," Captain America demanded as he started to finger John's ring in his belt while making sure he was holding his shield in a way that would prevent the two from seeing him do so.

"We needed test subjects for a certain experiment," Scar revealed. "As you have no doubt learned by now, the Blue Lantern you currently align yourselves with was once a Red Lantern, which indicates that it is possible for a Lantern to fully, shed the power of their corps for another. Further evidence of this comes from Sinestro, but as you know, he was stripped of his own power after being removed from the Green Lantern Corps, so his converting to this new corp. is no small surprise. We wanted to see if it were possible to force such changes into others so that they may join a more worthy and powerful Lantern Corp. Sadly, all our attempts thus far have ended in the failures you see around you."

"You mean that you've been capturing Lanterns so that you can use them as lab rats in your sick, twisted experiments," Razer snarled as his Blue Lantern aura began to flare a little brighter along with Carol's, easily showing how infuriated and disgusted they both were with this revelation.

"All necessary evils in the name of furthering a better cause. The cause of the one true power in the galaxy: fear," Sinestro boasted, showing just how much he truly believed the justifications for these twisted experiments.

At that point, Captain America's eyes narrowed in response and he immediately said, "Fear is powerful, yes, but the real power is being able to overcome it, and face that fear with a determination and hope that can carry anyone to success. All your power can accomplish is a lie that can only lead brave souls to eventually rise up and strike back, even if they're alone in such actions, and they'll keep on doing so until others start to join their cause. Your so-called power is nothing more than a lie that can only lead to destruction."

Sinestro and Scar both stared at the captain like they could hardly believe a word they had just heard, until they both burst out laughing like they had heard the most ridiculous thing in their lives. "What sort of fool would actually believe that," Sinestro asked.

"I would, and I've seen proof of how true that sentiment is time and time again in my life," Steve retorted.

"And just what makes you so special," Scar asked.

At that point, Cap could not help but chuckle a little, mostly due to the sudden sense of déjà vu he was currently feeling, but all the same, he still answered with the same response he gave the last time someone had asked him that question. "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn." That answer only served to enrage Sinestro to the point where he unleashed a powerful blast from his ring at the super soldier, pushing Steve a good distance back despite his shield intercepting the blow, and forcing him to drop John's ring within said Green Lantern's reach. After colliding with a nearby railing, Cap managed to stand up once again and leveled an even glare at Sinestro as he asked, "Is that all you've got? I could do this kind of thing all day."

"Perhaps, but I'm afraid that we are on something of a tight schedule," Sinestro said as he formed a yellow, sword construct that he intended to run through Captain America.

Before Sinestro could deliver so much as one blow with his energy-created weapon, the whole building suddenly shook under the force of an explosion drawing everyone's attention upwards right at the same moment another explosion rang out through the prison. When a third explosion suddenly hit, the ceiling finally gave way, prompting each Lantern who could to raise an energy barrier around everyone in their vicinity to protect them from the falling debris, just as the _Interceptor II_ came into view with Hal, Kilowog, and Aya flying down from it with each of their respective weapons primed for battle. "That's alright, so are we," Razer then quipped in response to Sinestro's earlier comment, and he then unleashed a powerful blast of blue energy from his ring that easily struck one of the Yellow Lanterns that had just arrived after the ship had blown a new opening into the prison.

An instant later, Captain America had slammed his shield across Sinestro's front a couple of times before following up with a hard kick that sent the fallen Green Lantern right into Hal's line of fire, while Kilowog was quickly engaging a Sinestro Corps warrior that was almost the same size as him, while everyone else was left to deal with the other warriors. At one point in the fight, Carol had managed to get the injured Lanterns over to the _Interceptor II_ so that there would be little chance of them getting caught in the crossfire, and it was at that point that Aya found herself face-to-face with her creator once again, much to Scar's distain. "I should have destroyed you long ago," the fallen Guardian snarled.

"And perhaps my friends and I should have exposed you and your crimes long before our current time as well," Aya retorted before she let loose a blast of blue energy from the palm of her hand, sending Scar flying away from the current battlefield.

At one point, Cap found himself dog piled by the enemy Lanterns, but it proved to be of little concern for him when he used the electromagnet in one of his suits arms to bring his shield over to him just in time to hit a Sinestro Corps warrior right in the back, disorienting him just enough for the super soldier to shake him off. A quick tap of his foot against the edge allowed Steve to bring his shield onto his free arm with no trouble, and he then used the disk to knock out another pair of Sinestro Corps warriors before he finally tossed it in the direction of a pair of enemies that were moving on John's position. With that done, Steve then used both arms to flip the last warrior off of him so that he could deliver a knockout punch into the warrior's face once he was lying flat on the ground, and he then sprang back up into a standing position just in time to catch his shield when John had thrown it back to him.

John had managed to slip his ring back onto his finger, but unfortunately, it did not have enough power for him to really make a difference in the fight, which had fallen to a state where his side was now just struggling to survive. Seeing this immediately told him that they needed to leave, a fact that he immediately shouted over to his comrades, and they all immediately nodded. Once Razer and Carol had both grabbed Steve and John, the team made a beeline for the _Interceptor II_ with Kilowog covering the rear by forming the weapons construct he had used in the previous confrontation with members of the Sinestro Corps until they had all gotten aboard. Once they had reached the bridge, Hal immediately gunned the thrusters forward while Kilowog and Aya assumed control of the ship's weaponry, Carol moved to check on the rescued Lanterns, and Razer and Cap just assumed the remaining stations on the bridge. John eventually managed to get up to the bridge on its own, just in time to see that the members of the Sinestro Corps were forming quite the blockade to keep them from escaping.

"What are our chances of getting through that," Steve inquired.

"With Hal flying, a lot better than they would be with just anyone, but we're still going to need to make one hell of a hole to get through," John replied. He then turned to look at the Lantern battery powering the ship's engines, and then smirked a little before changing into his Lantern suit and moving towards the airlock. "Keep them busy a little longer! When I signal you, make as hard a run out of here as you can Jordan, and make sure that this thing's ultra warp is ready," John called before going out of the ship.

"Wait, what?! What're you doing, John," Kilowog shouted, but he the only answer he received was a hit to the ship that forced him to return to manning the weapons once again.

While the ship continued to weave and swerve through the barrage that the Sinestro Corps was peppering them with, John managed to get to the area of the hull that was directly above the _Interceptor II_ 's engine, and he then leveled a powerful glare at his current opponents before pointing his ring towards said engine and saying his very familiar oath as fast as he could. "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power Green Lantern's light!"

An instant later, an explosion of green energy erupted around John, and he then quickly directed his ring towards the closest cluster of Sinestro Corp warriors before unleashing one of the most powerful bursts of energy from his ring yet. Once the blast had subsided, a massive hole had opened up in the enemy's line, and Hal immediately gunned for it at the _Interceptor II_ 's top speed, once they were well out of Qward's atmosphere and orbit, Razer quickly pulled John into the ship, since he had lost consciousness after firing off that particular blast, and the ship jumped to Ultra Warp, leaving both Sinestro and Scar scowling at where it had disappeared to once it had.

* * *

When John finally woke up again, the team had long since returned to Oa, where Hal and Kilowog had reported on what they had discovered in regards to Sinestro forming a new Lantern Corp. Captain America was the only one in the medical center when John woke up, and thus was left with the job of explaining that they had made a quick stop at Odym to drop off Razer and Aya, since the others thought it would be better if Aya did not suddenly appear before the Guardians when she was supposed to be dead for some reason. John knew full well what that reason was, so he immediately nodded in understanding of this and asked Cap to remind him to send his thanks to the two later on. After another minute or so, despite how sore he felt in some areas, John finally got up from the medical bed he was lying on as Cap told him that Kilowog said he was lucky that his stunt did not blow his arm completely off, to which John replied that it felt like he had as a small joke, drawing laughs out of them both.

At that point, Steve finally decided to ask the one question that had been bothering him since this whole thing started. "Why did you send your ring to me when you could've just sent it back here to Oa, Hal, or even to another member of the League?"

John knew this question would be coming, so he allowed himself a small smile as he said, "Part of the reason is because I knew that you would do everything you could to find out what happened and help if I did, even if you had to do it alone, but the main reason was that I figured that if there was anyone on Earth who would probably make a good replacement for me in the Corp, it would have to be you."

Steve smiled and nodded in thanks to John for that, and the two then departed so that John could take them both back to Earth, each hoping that they had not been gone for too long during this little adventure. As they were going though, Steve could not help but say, "Honestly though, I don't think your Corp suits me. A lot of them are a little too serious for my tastes, and green really isn't my color. I think I'd probably be a better Blue Lantern to be honest."

"Well don't let Appa hear you say that. He'll probably pop a vein if he does," John jokingly warned, drawing laughs from the both of them just as they began their return to Earth, each fully intent on acquainting themselves with their beds once they had gotten home, because after the day they had, there was no way they could say that they were not exhausted.

* * *

 ** _AN: Now, I hope you all remember when I said earlier on that I really liked_ Green Lantern the Animated Series _, and would use certain elements from it in this story, well now, there it is with this chapter. While not all that much of the focus was on Cap this time, I'd like to think that it does give you all an idea of what I think would likely have happened in the series if it had continued. So yeah, now there's a Sinestro Corp, Razer, Aya, and Carol have all shown up, and yes, Hal Jordan is the other Earth Green Lantern in this story. I know that technically Kyle Rayner was the one to fill that role, and I have nothing personal against the guy he's just...well...okay fine, he's not all that well known or popular, at least from my perspective. I mean, the guy has only had like two appearances in media outside of comic books: one in_ Superman the Animated Series _and one in_ Justice League Unlimited _, and that's it, so can you really blame me for going with one of the more famous Green Lanterns over Kyle?_**

 ** _Oh, and I know that my saying that this story will have a Young Justice part to it has got you guys thinking, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I have already decided on a few Marvel characters for the team's line-up. It's nothing final just yet, but I will say that three of the Marvel characters that will be part of the team are going to be Falcon, Carol Danvers aka Ms Marvel, and Scarlet Spider. Other than that, I leave it up to you guys and your imaginations as to what will happen there for the moment. If you want a more extensive answer on who's going to likely be on the team in my interpretation of Young Justice in this story's timeline, please let me know in a review._**

 ** _Finally, like I said last chapter, if anyone's interested in seeing a little more elaboration on an Arrow-verse version of Spider-Man, please let me know in either a PM or in the reviews, because it certainly has a bit of merit._**

 ** _Well that's everything I wanted to bore you all with, so Onto the Preview with you lot..._**

 ** _What started out as a friendly visit to Central City quickly turns into a rather strange day after Captain America, Flash, and Green Lantern find themselves caught up in a plot to save a city full of hyper-intelligent, talking gorillas. Very little seems as though it could really complicate such a thing anymore than it already is, until Gorilla Grodd reveals that he had managed to acquire some extra strong muscle by brainwashing one of Earth's strongest heroes. The Leaguers are going to have to be careful, or they will really find themselves not liking this particular opponent…when he's angry. Start praying that everyone will survive next time in…_** **Chapter 9: The Brave, the Bold, and the Hulk** ** _._**

 ** _Yeah, you know it's going to get all kinds of crazy next time. I know you guys are going to be excited for this, am I right? Until then..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	9. The Brave, the Bold, and the Hulk

_**Deadpool: [humming] Hmm, hmm, hmm, doo-doo-doo, waiting for lyokoMARVELanime~**_

 _ **AN: [walks into the room and then blanches at the sight of who's already there] Okay, I'm not even going to bother asking how you got in here, but I do want to know why you thought you'd get off easy by coming in before me today.**_

 _ **Deadpool: Whoa, cool your jets there, bud. I'm not here to cause trouble, unless there's a hot, sexy babe here who needs me to answer all her dreams!**_

 _ **AN: [muttering] Ugh, I'll believe that when I see it. [looks directly at Deadpool] Well what**_ **are _you doing here, and get straight to the point, please. This is a long chapter, and I'd like for everyone to get right to it as soon as possible._**

 ** _Deadpool: Well, I saw over in your Code Lyoko and Avengers crossover story, Code Avengers Cosmic that you're going to have a chapter in this story that acts as a crossover between this story and that one, and I was thinking, "Hey a crossover between two of lyokoMARVELanime's big superhero stories?! That sounds awesome! Maybe I can convince him to let me join in on the action in that chapter! Maybe if I promise to get him a chance to get with Wasp he'll agree."_**

 ** _AN: Okay, I'm going to ignore that last sentence and just say here we go again. Deadpool, for the god-only-knows-zillionth time, you. Are NOT. Going to be. In this story. Or any of my stories. So long as I can help it._**

 ** _Deadpool: Awe, come on! Who better to give both the Avengers and the Justice League a real challenge that would make them unite together like that than me?_**

 ** _AN: You want the short list or the long one? [pulls out said lists an instant later]_**

 ** _Deadpool: [gains depressed cloud and aura you see in anime] That's just mean._**

 ** _AN: That's life. Deal with it, nutcase. And while he's doing that, you all can enjoy the newest chapter of Justice Marvel, head over to Chapter 7 of Code Avengers Cosmic to see an early preview for the chapter that Deadpool just mentioned, or whatever else you may normally do after reading these notes. Trust me though, that chapter that crosses this story over with Code Avengers is going to be good. I can feel it._**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 9: The Brave, the Bold, and the Hulk**

While every superhero typically sticks to their own corner of the globe, assuming they have one, that does not mean that they do not sometimes venture out of the city they protect to visit another place just for the sake of doing so. Most people would think that the only reason that a hero would go to another hero's city would be because one of their enemies is there, or they are just following up on a case they were working on, but that is not always necessarily true, because if that were the case, then every hero would probably be as anti-social as Batman was often considered to be. At the moment, our favorite super soldier was actually taking some time off from saving New York City to visit with Central City's favorite speedster, and while Cap would probably do so anyways, he would not deny that it did not hurt that there were quite a few heroes defending New York whether he was there or not. At the moment, however, Steve was actually more curious about a matter that he would consider to be much more mystifying.

"You seriously have your own coffee drink," Steve asked one Barry Allen as the two were waiting in line and looking over the menu of Central City's famous, local coffee hotspot. The super soldier was currently decked out in his usual civilian attire with the addition of a dark blue baseball cap to help hide his identity so that he did not cause anyone to start throwing up a fuss about Captain America being in the shop and so that he could keep anyone from figuring out Barry was the Flash.

Barry just gave a modest shrug in response as he said, "The city just loves the Flash and wants to do whatever they can to thank him for everything he's done. It's not like I've ever asked them to do this type of thing."

"Yet you're not denying that you enjoy it," Steve pointed out with a small smirk.

This time Barry let his smile come out in full and admitted, "Well it does feel pretty good to be thanked like this. I mean, who wouldn't want to thank their heroes, right?"

"Remind me to bring you over to New York sometime so that you can be acquainted with Spider-Man's biggest opposer: J. Jonah Jameson," Steve said with a small frown on his face.

Barry had to give a much more obvious frown when he heard that, mostly because he had read some of the stories and articles that the Daily Bugle had published about Spider-Man over the years, including the ones that had come before he became the Flash, and it was obvious that the editor had little to no interest in posting any facts about the web-swinger's good deeds. Add in the fact that Jameson sometimes even put in a few scathing articles about the Justice League every now and again, and you can see very well why the man had almost no supporters among the superheroes. "Man, what is that guy's problem with heroes anyway," Barry grumbled when they finally reached the counter and gave their orders.

"I'd tell you to ask Spider-Man, but he hasn't been seen for a few weeks lately, and he'd tell you that he's just as clueless as we are," Steve informed the fastest man alive. "He's sometimes said that his theories range from the idea that Jameson was bit by a spider as a boy and can't let go of a grudge, and that he just doesn't know how to see a good person trying to help out if they're wearing a mask."

Barry could not help himself from laughing when he heard the former of the two theories, but he quickly paused when he realized what else Steve had just implied when he said that. "You…Are you saying you've met him? You've actually met Spider-Man?!"

"Yeah, he actually helped Diana and I on a case we were working on a while back, and we sometimes do patrols of New York together," Steve nodded after he accepted his drink, having decided to try the one that was named after his friend just before they had reached the counter.

"So…so do you know how he got his powers or anything like that," Barry asked once they had found a table, clearly excited to hear about Steve's adventures and meetings with Spider-Man.

"Uh no, I didn't ask," Steve admitted. It was true that he did not ask about Spider-Man's origin, but he was not planning to tell Barry what he did know about New York's friendly neighborhood hero. Peter did entrust him with the knowledge of his secret identity for a reason, and Steve was not planning to break that trust. "You know, maybe if you stop by New York, you could ask him yourself, if you're that curious."

Barry's smile could not have been wider at that moment, but unfortunately, it did not last, due to the fact that the sounds of screaming and car horns blaring reached their ears a minute later. Looking out the window, the two were just able to glimpse a truck race past the coffee shop while running any vehicles in its way off the road. Seeing this never meant good news, and Barry just spared a quick glance at Steve before the super soldier stood up and started heading towards the door, his hand already going up to remove his hat as he immediately jumped into his soldier mentality. "You go on ahead and see what you can do to stop that truck. I'll catch up as fast as I can," Steve told Barry.

Barry simply nodded in response and was then gone in a flash of red lightning. As he was running too fast for anyone to really see him, Barry was easily able to tap the gold ring he wore on his right hand, releasing his red costume from within it, and then change into said suit in a quick, fluid motion without anyone realizing it, and thus, the Flash was now racing through Central City on the tail of the truck that was barreling through his city and causing so much damage to the surrounding area as it went. Of course, since the surrounding area and other vehicles on the road were being put in danger, Flash was not able to keep going straight after the truck the entire time, as he had to make slight stops to make sure that the people were clear of the path and destruction as he went, but thankfully, that was not a problem for the fastest man alive, and thus he was able to keep close to an even pace with the fleeing vehicle.

At least, that was the case until the man in the passenger seat of the truck suddenly leaned out and started shooting bursts of energy blasts at him with a very advanced looking laser pistol, forcing Flash to duck and weave around so that he could avoid getting hit by any of the blasts while simultaneously making sure that no one else was hit due to being caught in the line of fire and that the collateral damage was kept to as great a minimum as possible. "Why does it seem like everyone seems to have laser guns now-a-days? Why can't the bad guys just stick to the old regular guns that shoot bullets and such," Flash wondered aloud as he continued chasing the truck, only to pause in concern for a moment when he saw that a stray shot that had barely grazed him ended up striking a small store just above the heads of a couple just as they were coming out of said store.

The couple was barely able to huddle together in fear as the debris fell towards them, having little time to do much else, but just before Flash could think of whisking them away to safety, a certain red, white, and blue clad hero raced in on his motorcycle to pull them clear. After skidding to a stop, Captain America released the couple from the safe hold he had pulled them into and asked, "Are you two okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks Cap," the man replied with a thumbs up.

"Just doing what I can to help," Cap nodded, and he then gunned the engine of his trusted motorcycle to rejoin Flash in his chase after the truck. As the two started to catch up to the fleeing vehicle, Cap had to ask, "How'd you get your suit so fast?"

"Flash Ring. Don't leave home without it," Barry replied with a smile. "Plus, it's a better alternative to having to carry the suit around in a backpack like I used to have to."

Steve smiled in response to that, easily understanding where Flash was coming from in that regard, and the two then accelerated forward so that they were now both on either side of the vehicle, with the man who was previously shooting at Flash quickly being disarmed thanks to a quick throw of Captain America's shield. Once he was riding right alongside the driver's side of the truck, Cap reached up and knocked on the door to get the driver to roll down his window. Once the driver had done so, Cap saw that he was a man with short, dark hair, glasses, and a fancy suit, and the blank look on his face gave Steve an odd feeling, but he quickly shook it off so that he could shout, "Pull over, sir! Not only are you speeding, but you're putting innocent bystanders in danger with your reckless driving!"

The driver said nothing in response, and instead just turned the wheel so that the truck would swerve towards Cap in an attempt to run him off the bridge that the two heroes had chased the truck drivers onto. Thankfully, Cap was able to hit the brakes on his motorcycle fast enough to avoid getting hit, but his move ended up causing the truck to hit the side of the bridge before veering out of control. Seeing that the vehicle was about to go right through the railing of the bridge and into the water below, Flash immediately put on an extra burst of speed to pull both driver and the passenger out of the cab over to safety just before the vehicle crashed through the railing. Once Flash was sure that the two people who were in the truck had been place safely on the ground and Cap had slowed his bike to a stop, the two found the only thing left for them to do was to wait for the inevitable splash that would follow the truck's collision with the water below, but in the end, it never came, causing the two to turn to where the truck had gone over and see that it was being suspended inside of a green energy bubble, courtesy of a fellow Leaguer of theirs.

"Lose something," Green Lantern rhetorically inquired as he lowered the truck back onto the bridge.

"For a moment there, yeah, but thanks for helping us find it," Flash quipped in reply. "Thanks for the assist, GL, but I get the feeling you're not in Central City for a friendly visit."

"Like I'd be able to find you if I was," John remarked as he led the speedster around to the back of the truck while Cap checked on the two men who were driving it. "I was responding to a police call that said someone hijacked a load of radioactive isotopes."

A quick look into the back of the truck easily confirmed that Flash and Cap's road-ragers were indeed the same isotope thieves that Green Lantern was looking for, which meant that the three heroes now had to interrogate the two on their reasons for doing so, since no one just stole radioactive anything for the same reasons as a common crook would try to rob a bank. There was just one problem with that, which quickly became apparent when the two started coming around to consciousness. "Where am I," the driver groaned after he had rubbed his eyes like he had just woken up.

"On the bridge that you tried to drive your hijacked truck off of," Captain America told the man.

"And in addition to those crimes, you also tried to run my buddy, Cap here off said bridge. Any of this ringing a bell," Flash inquired with a hard look.

"What," the man gasped in honest surprise, while his partner just stared in wide-eyed, silent shock at what the speedster had said.

Green Lantern did not seem like he was buying the two's act and immediately aimed his ring at the two and said, "Let's see some ID." A second later, a pair of green tendrils were pulling the two men's wallets out of their jackets and opening them up to the items that John wanted to see. "Professor Arthur Chen and Doctor Mark Stevens. Both work at the research center the isotopes were stolen from."

"And I feel guilty when I take paperclips from the Watchtower," Flash quipped.

"Wait…that's you," Captain America asked in surprise, but anyone could tell by the small ghost of a smile on his lips that he was just joking. The super soldier brought his attention back to the professor and doctor, and asked, "What's the last thing you two remember?"

"I…I remember going to clock out for my lunch break…and hearing someone muttering to himself about people coming after him, I think. After that it's all blank, like someone shut out all the lights and sound," Stevens said, with Chen stating that he remembered the same thing as well.

"What do you think, Cap," Flash asked.

"I'm not sure," Steve admitted. "Could be that someone had put the two into a hypnotic state and forced them to do this, but I can't be certain."

"You think they were hypnotized? Really," John asked.

"I've seen a lot of strange things in the Forties, John, and considering what I've seen since waking up from a seventy-year-long nap, I'm surprised you'd be so willing to rule anything like that out so quickly," Captain America pointed out.

John had to admit that the super soldier did have a point, but being in both the marines and Green Lanterns for so long, he knew that it was usually better to get all the facts straight before jumping to any conclusions. "Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this back at the research center," the Lantern of the three suggested.

"What's the place they stole it from," Flash asked.

"The River Bluffs Research Laboratory," John revealed.

"Alright, I know that place and a few of the people there, so just follow my lead and try not to do or say anything to offend anyone," Flash informed the other two. With a quick nod from his teammates, Flash allowed Captain America to climb onto his motorcycle once again, and was soon racing off to lead his teammates to the institute that had been robbed.

* * *

It did not take long for the three Leaguers to reach their destination, and after asking around the facility, they were soon directed to Chen and Stevens' supervisor, Doctor Sarah Corwin, who easily agreed to let the three look through the files on the two scientists, though she did not really show any sign of emotion on the matter one way or another, but they mostly chalked it up to the fact that she was unhappy about how two of her employees had just suddenly stolen something from their facility, seemingly from out of nowhere and paid it no mind. "I'm sorry I can't explain their behavior," Doctor Corwin informed the three Leaguers. "They're both highly respected experts in their fields."

"They certainly don't fit the profile of armed robbers," John commented as he looked through the file that the doctor had given him while Flash looked around the lab at a speed that was faster than the eye could track. Cap was doing the same as Flash, though he was doing so much more slowly, yet just as unnoticeably while he stood next to John as the Lantern looked through the scientists' files.

"To be fair, they've been under enormous pressure to finish their current project. It's possible they simply snapped under the strain," the doctor evenly reasoned. "I wish I could help you but frankly, the whole thing just seems so…preposterous."

"What were they working on," Flash asked, gaining a pair of odd looks from his teammates when they noticed how his voice seemed slightly different when he spoke, almost like he was speaking through a microphone with an echo setting.

"That's classified information," the doctor quickly snapped as she snatched away the file before John could get any more of a look in it.

"With all due respect, Doctor, if there's a chance that it was responsible for why they did this then we should know now before any of your other employees suddenly start acting out of character," Captain America argued.

"With all due respect to you, Captain, rules are rules. I can't tell you anything more than I already have, but I will say that their project has no chance of causing such things to happen," Corwin replied with the smallest hint of an edge in her tone.

Cap looked like he was going to say something else, but he was quickly cut off when Flash stepped forward to prevent anyone from biting each other's head off. "Chen and Stevens mentioned that they came across a man who was muttering to himself about people coming after him before their memories on the whole thing went blank. Know anyone here like that?"

"There was one man who came in earlier to visit, but he wasn't exactly the type of person I would normally let into the building for any reason, given the state of his rather ragged attire," Corwin confirmed. "I had security throw him out a few hours ago when they found him. Afterward, he started ranting on about some random nonsense on how someone wanted to turn him into a lab rat or something, but we all figured it was the rantings of a desperate, homeless man. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

Cap and Lantern were about to say something in retort to the doctor, but once again, Flash just gave them a silent signal not to and led them out of the building, since he could tell that they were not going to get many answers here. None of them ever noticed how the large gorilla that was sitting in one of the cages for the lab animals was watching them depart with far more attention that what seemed normal for any animal on principle.

* * *

"Would you hurry up! We're supposed to be conducting an investigation," Green Lantern snapped at Flash when the three stopped by a hotdog vendor a few hours after they had left Corwin's facility.

"Sorry, but I can't help it that I have a hyper accelerated metabolism," Flash retorted as he scooped up the armful of hotdogs he just purchased. "Besides, this is just a little snack."

"Right," Cap slowly nodded while John just quirked an eyebrow in response to Flash's idea of a "little snack." After a minute though, Steve could not help but ask about something he recalled from their talk with Corwin. "What was with you changing your voice like that?"

Flash's expression became a bit more serious as he started on the first of his many hotdogs and he soon replied, "I've met Doctor Corwin a couple of times as my secret identity so I was a bit worried she might recognize my voice."

"Okay, but how'd you do it," John asked, admittedly feeling a bit curious about the matter as well.

"Well I can do this cool thing with my vocal cords where I vibrate them, so I sound like this," Flash explained in the same voice he had used earlier when they were speaking with the doctor.

That got a pair of laughs out of both of Barry's fellow heroes, which made him think back to the first time he had showed off the same trick to Joe West, who had nearly the exact same reaction. "That's actually pretty cool," Steve chuckled.

"Yeah, I know, right," Flash agreed with a chuckle of his own.

John was about to comment on Flash's little voice effect as well when a nearby military vehicle suddenly rolled past, gaining his attention. "I know that Central City is close to a military base, but there seems to be a few more military vehicles than usual for such a city today," the Green Lantern commented.

"Yeah tell me about it," Flash nodded. "I asked Detective West of CCPD if he knew anything about this as well as his daughter Iris, but they were completely in the dark on the matter. The most that we know is that some special unit in the U.S. Armed Forces has tracked some 'rogue element' to the city, but beyond that, they're not saying much else."

That drew suspicious looks from both the former marine and the super soldier, as they both knew that more than likely meant that there was either some secret operation going on that the government wanted to keep quiet, or that said rogue element was far more dangerous than they let on because they thought that it would cause a panic if the people did know. Before any of them could comment further on the matter, their attention was once again drawn away from the discussion, but this time due to the sound of passing police sirens. "Now what," John groaned in irritation.

"There's a gorilla on the loose," some random civilian shouted as he and several others came running past the trio of heroes.

The three shared a quick look between one another, each clearly thinking the same thing, and Cap immediately prepared to start giving orders until Flash beat him to the punch. "I'll run on ahead to scout it out, and then I'll try to slow our big hairy friend down a bit until you guys catch up," the speedster said as he handed the rest of his snack to John.

"Flash wait! We should go together," John tried to say, but Flash was already gone before he could finish his sentence.

When Lantern looked to Captain America in annoyance, Steve could only shrug as he slipped his mask back over his head and said, "This is his city. It's only fair that he take off like he's handling this on his own like that."

* * *

It did not take long for Barry to reach the area where the loose gorilla was last sighted, the large number of police and SWAT cars definitely helped narrow down where he had to go, but he was not entirely prepared for what he saw when he did arrive. The gorilla in question was rather large, and possessed a dark grey face and paws while his fur was a silvery grey, but the strange thing about it was that the ape was not only sitting in the driver's seat of a car, but was actually driving the vehicle like any normal human being would. "Now there's something you don't see every day," Flash muttered to himself before he started running after the gorilla driven vehicle. As he started closing in, he quickly tapped his League comm. device and said, "GL, Cap, you're not gonna believe this, but that gorilla that's got everyone freaked out is actually driving a car to get away from the cops."

 _"I'm sorry; could repeat that? It sounded like you just said that the gorilla was driving a car,"_ Green Lantern replied, his voice oozing with skepticism.

"Yeah, I wouldn't have believed it either if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes," Flash stated as he put on a little more speed to catch up with the ape.

 _"Well to be fair, we work with three aliens, an Amazon, and a guy who dresses like a bat, and let's not forget about who the three of us are, so it probably shouldn't be that surprising,"_ Captain America reasoned, no doubt shouting a little over the engine of his bike since Flash could hear it in the background.

 _"Was fighting evil in the Forties really that much like it is now,"_ Green Lantern inquired.

 _"No; sometimes it got weird,"_ Captain America joked. His tone became serious once again as he reported, _"We're just a few blocks away from where you are right now, Flash, so try to slow the big guy down a little until we get there."_

"You've got it," Flash nodded, and he was instantly swerved to the side to grab a nearby, discarded rake before he moved to run right alongside the car, much to the ape's surprise. "Hey, having fun, Mojo?"

The gorilla just growled a little in response before shifting gears and accelerating its stolen vehicle forward, but that did nothing to keep him safe from Flash planting the borrowed rake right in the path of said vehicle, as he quickly found out when the car's tires suddenly blew out. Flash then raced forward to get any bystanders out of the way of the out of control car, and then just watched as it skidded to a stop after running into a large trash bin. Seeing the gorilla climb out of the vehicle with a weak moan immediately told Flash that the large ape was not hurt, and he quickly raced over to help the gorilla out as he said as soothingly as possible, "Easy big fella. We'll have you back behind monkey bars before you know it."

"Get your stinking paws off me, you filthy human," the gorilla suddenly shouted in a deep sounding voice, much to Flash's wide-eyed surprise.

"Okay, that is definitely new," Flash gasped in shock, only to furrow his brow in confusion when the gorilla suddenly gasped in what seemed to be fear at something behind the Flash. Whatever that something was ended up drawing Flash's attention after it had come crashing down to the street behind him, and when he turned around to see what it was, Flash could feel his own fear spiking as well at the sight before him. There, standing over both the talking gorilla and the speedster, was the massive, green skinned bruiser in torn, tan pants that was feared by many and known to all: the Hulk. Flash was barely able to say or do anything before the jade giant let out a bestial roar and slammed one of his large fists right into the fastest man alive, sending Flash flying through a few buildings until he finally crashed down onto the street again and lost consciousness. The last thing Barry saw before everything went black was the gorilla running away like his life depended on it, while the Hulk took off with one mighty leap as a number of military vehicles started appearing where the green giant had been.

* * *

When Green Lantern and Captain America finally reached Flash's location, saying that they both became quickly concerned would have been like saying that Superman was strong; severely understated. Thankfully, John's ring was able to confirm that the speedster was alive and healing quickly like he always did, but he would still need to receive medical treatment if there was a chance that said healing powers did something wrong. Since it would have taken too long to get Flash to the Watchtower, Cap immediately contacted Barry's friends at S.T.A.R. Labs to let them know they would be headed there and then led Lantern off to the science facility. When the two arrived, Caitlin was the one who greeted them at the door and led them to the medical station where they would be setting Flash down while Cisco was nowhere to be seen, at least until he suddenly appeared before them decked out in a rather impressive looking, long coat, and high-tech glasses with reflective lenses that hid his eyes. When he did appear before the two, he was quick to introduce himself as Vibe, which immediately told Steve that the young scientist was also a superhero in his own right somehow, something he would be sure to question Flash about after he woke up.

Steve did not have to wait long, as Barry eventually awoke with a bit of a start, prompting Caitlin and the others to calmly reassure him that he was alright and safe, for which the Flash was very grateful. After letting his friend's nerves calm down a bit more though, Cap eventually did ask, "Why didn't you ever tell me that Cisco was a hero as well?"

"He's technically not," Flash whispered in explanation. "Cisco just recently discovered his powers and is still learning to use them. He wants to be sure he knows most of his limits before he does any crime fighting as Vibe, so that's why he typically works as support for me from here."

Steve nodded in understanding of this, and at the same time, he found his respect for Cisco increasing quite a bit. Steve knew better than most that it was always good to know what your limits were before taking a plunge like that, but that was something that he would probably think about later, because there was something else that needed to be discussed now. "So what happened to you," Captain America asked after he had helped the speedster slowly rise to his feet.

"Well…you're probably not going to believe this, but after I stopped the gorilla's car, I made my way over to make sure he wouldn't run off again, and he actually spoke to me saying to, and I quote, 'Get my stinking paws of him,' in perfect English," Flash admitted.

"The gorilla talked to you," John asked in full skepticism. He was willing to believe that such an animal could steal and drive a car since a person could train animals to do a variety of different things, but if someone expected him to believe that any animal could actually speak English like any everyday person, then they would need a lot more proof than just hearsay.

"Need I remind you about the point Cap made earlier about the people we normally associate with," Flash pointed out.

"Not to mention a lot of weird stuff does seem to happen in this city," Cisco commented.

"That's not the important part though," Flash quickly said. "The next thing I knew, he was looking at something behind me like he had seen a ghost or something and then something actually crashed down behind me, or rather, some _one_. When I turned around, I was greeted with the sight of…"

"Of what," Steve asked, feeling nervous when Barry had stopped short in his sentence.

When Barry did finish what he was saying though, everyone felt their blood run cold for a few minutes. "Of the Hulk."

Everyone in the room had heard at least one or two stories about the jade giant since his first appearance, including Captain America, so it was only natural that they all felt a sense of paralyzing fear wash over them when they heard that said giant was now in Central City for some reason. A very tense silence had filled the entire room so much that one could have cut it with a knife, but eventually, Green Lantern did manage to find his voice again. "Maybe…maybe you had just been seeing things," John tried to reason. "I mean, the Hulk is just a myth that was made up by the army to cover up some military experiments gone wrong."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Detective West announced as he entered the room, drawing everyone's attention to him. "CCPD just got a visit from General 'Thunderbolt' Ross himself, and it turns out that he's the one in charge of that military unit that's been coming into Central City lately, though for what reason, he wouldn't say until after the Hulk managed to make off with those isotopes from the truck you three stopped this morning. The Hulk is here in the city, and Ross wants to lock the whole place down so that he can capture him."

"Shouldn't he consider evacuating everyone, or even try driving the Hulk out of the city," Flash asked.

"I wouldn't bet on that," Joe stated. "I got the feeling that Ross is more interested in just getting the big guy than he is protecting anyone who gets caught in the crossfire. The Hulk is Ross' Moby Dick."

Cap was a bit happy that he was able to understand that reference, mostly because there were a lot of references that people used that he did not understand, but that was easily overshadowed by the anger towards this General Ross that was building up inside of him. Thankfully, his training as a soldier was more than enough to keep his emotions in check for the moment, and he immediately said, "We're going to have to make sure that we can secure the Hulk or get him out of the city before Ross puts any civilians in danger with a fight against him, but we can't ignore Flash's talking gorilla either."

"Well we can't do both of those things, so where should we start," John pointed out.

"Maybe by finding King Kong," Flash offered. "If that look of fear on his face was any indication, he might know why the Hulk's here in the first place."

"And we can also find the Hulk anytime we want now," Caitlin revealed as she positioned herself at the central computer station. "When I was helping patch up Flash, my equipment detected some residual gamma radiation, which means there's a chance that the Hulk gives it off naturally. Vibe and I started scanning Central City for large concentrations of gamma rays a few minutes ago, so if the idea holds, then we should find the Hulk in no time." At that point, the scanners started beeping rapidly while another alarm in the lab started ringing, drawing looks of concern from both scientists. "Please tell me that's not right," Caitlin whispered as she and Vibe started rapidly typing away at their computers.

"What's wrong," Joe asked.

"There's a serious concentration of gamma rays right here at S.T.A.R. Labs, which is likely being reinforced by the proximity alarms going off," Cisco stated, and that was all the explanation that any of the heroes needed to start gearing up for action as they headed down the hallway to the main entrance of S.T.A.R. Labs.

When they reached their destination, they were greeted, not by a giant, green rage monster, but by a very thin, lanky man who looked almost as pale as a ghost. The man's attire was nothing to brag about either, as he was only wearing baggy, brown pants, a ball cap, and a blue hoodie, and even with his hood up, it was rather easy to see the rather scruffy beard on his face and a few strands of disheveled hair. When the man saw the heroes standing before him like they were ready to attack, he immediately backed off, clearly frightened, and shouted, "No wait! I'm not here to cause trouble, I just need help!"

"Who are you," Lantern demanded, his tone showing that he was not taking any chances.

"Please, just…I need to speak with Doctor Snow," the man pleaded. "I-I need to hide before anyone finds me."

Before anyone could ask anything else, Caitlin suddenly appeared behind the heroes and let out a gasp of shock. "Doctor Banner," the young woman inquired in honest surprise. "Doctor Bruce Banner?!"

"Yes," Banner nodded. "Yes, that's me, Doctor Snow."

"You know him, Caitlin," Flash asked.

"I only met him once when I was still in college, but I've read a lot of his papers on research in gamma rays. He's a leading expert in the field, at least until he disappeared one day," Caitlin explained. "What happened to you?"

"It's a long story," Banner replied. "But right now, I need you to hide me before Ross eventually figures out where I am."

"Why would the guy chasing the Hulk be after you," Flash inquired, his confusion shared by everyone else in the room.

Before Banner could reply, he suddenly let out what could be closely described as a blood-curdling scream and grasped his head like something was giving him a very terrible headache. "No, no! Not now," Banner pleaded in desperation. "I can't…WE can't let him…" After a minute or so, Banner started thrashing at his surroundings, making the heroes start moving towards him in an attempt to calm him down before he hurt himself, but they were stopped short when Banner raised a hand to them and shouted, "NO, STAY BACK! I can't control myself, and neither can he!"

"Who are you talking about," Captain America asked, but the only response he received was Banner screaming again.

 _"Guys, tell me what's going on down there, because the gamma ray readings just started skyrocketing faster than the_ Millennium Falcon _going into Hyper Space,"_ Cisco asked over the Flash's comm. device.

No one got the chance to answer him, as they were all soon backing away and becoming wide-eyed in fear at what they saw happen next. It started when they noticed Banner's eyes change from light brown to radiant green, and his skin was soon taking on a deeper shade of the same color as his eyes while his body and muscles seemed to expand and grow. It eventually came to the point where Banner's clothes started to rip apart from the strain, until his hat and hoodie were completely gone with a terrible rip. Somehow, Banner's pants managed to remain intact enough to stay on him, but not entirely, as evidenced by the holes that had formed in the knees and how the ends of the pant legs were a bit shredded. When this transformation was finally completed, everyone had paled quite considerably at the realization that they were standing before the Hulk, who's only reaction to the heroes was a mighty roar of anger.

That roar was all the reason Flash needed to whisk everyone away in a…well, flash, and the next thing they heard was a loud boom indicating that something had just crashed through the ceiling. A quick look to the various security cameras quickly told everyone that it was the Hulk that had broke the ceiling after he had taken a mighty leap into the air, and that he was still jumping away with equally if not even more powerful leaps, right in the direction of the park that the gorilla had been sighted at. After watching all this silence, Vibe was the one who ended up finally saying anything. "Well, I think it's safe to say that we now know our Hulk-Scanner works."

* * *

It was not long after Hulk's sudden appearance and subsequent escape from S.T.A.R. Labs that Ross and his Hulkbuster Unit, as it had come to be affectionately referred to by many people, had shown up at the door. Thankfully, some quick talking from Central City's local hero kept Ross from tearing through every nook and cranny of the facility to find anything that could lead them to tracking down the Hulk, which was easily backed with some help from Joe when he reminded the general that even if he was tracking a fugitive from the army he would still need a search warrant to go tearing through S.T.A.R. Labs in the way that he had intended to. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the general could have done some serious harm, or even have discovered something that would lead him to uncovering Flash's secret identity if he had been allowed to search the place in the way that he had intended to, so everyone who worked at the Central City S.T.A.R. Labs had to breathe a sigh of relief at that.

When Ross saw that there was no way he was going to get anything from the science and research facility, he ended up leaving in a huff while muttering something under his breath about crazy, monster-loving vigilantes. Throughout the entire meeting with Ross though, everyone found themselves gaining a less than favorable opinion about the man. Even Captain America, who had served with some strict generals and commanders in World War II found Ross' attitude during his time at S.T.A.R. Labs to be very unappealing to say the least. With the way that Ross ranted on and on about how the Hulk was a monster, a threat to the world, and the most dangerous man alive, one would almost think that he was the one with the anger management problems instead of the Hulk, and it also added further proof to what Joe had said about the Hulk being Ross' Moby Dick. The general may have been relatively more pleasant towards Steve during his time there, but that was most likely because Cap was both a fellow soldier and a respected war hero. Of course, another reason for that revealed itself when Ross ended up asking Steve to consider donating a sample of his blood to the army's science department in an attempt to restart the Super Soldier Program that had turned Steve into who he was today, only for Steve to refuse and lead Ross' mood to end up being more sour than it already was.

With the obsessed general dealt with, the three Leaguers were now able to resume their own investigations, but it was not the one that they had all agreed on, considering the question Green Lantern had posed when they arrived at one of the city's local parks. "Remind me again why we're looking for a talking gorilla when a serious threat to the world is running loose in the city," John asked in exasperation, despite the fact that his ring was already scanning for any hints that would lead them to said ape. "We should be trying to find the Hulk before he or Ross do any serious damage to the city that puts civilians in the line of fire."

"We _are_ looking for the Hulk. Like I said before, the gorilla had a look of recognition in his eyes when he saw the green guy heading towards us, and it wasn't the typical kind you get from seeing someone that's known far and wide as a threat. It was more like being found by someone you're trying to hide from, so if we find the gorilla, we might find some more answers on what's really going on here, both in regards to Hulk and the scientists who suddenly turned into thieves and got a memory blank," Flash stated, though it was in a much more tired tone than the speedster normally had. A quick glance towards the park entrance allowed him to see some of Central City's finest guarding said entry point, which immediately told him a fact that he quickly made known to the others. "Looks like our big, hairy friend is still at large."

"Let's get this over with quickly," Lantern muttered as he hovered a little ways above the ground and resumed scanning the area with his ring, not noticing the slightly irritated look he had drawn from Flash as he did. While Barry was not quite as territorial or opposed to accepting help from other heroes as Batman, he did not like other heroes coming into his city and disregarding what he knew about the place and treating it like it was just another one of their usual missions like John had been doing. Sure it was probably his fault because of how he acted sometimes when he was on a mission with other heroes, but he liked to think that he showed a decent amount of his maturity and seriousness about superhero work to be taken seriously, especially when it counted most, and when it came to the safety of his city, it always counted most to Flash. This was something that Green Lantern did not really seem to have figured out yet, but he figured that was mostly due to the fact that the two had not really hung out all that much, even though he had acted as John's attorney when the Earth Green Lantern was put on trial, so he managed to keep it contained for now and just followed his two teammates further into the park while searching for clues as well.

They did not end up searching for long, as Green Lantern eventually found what appeared to be paw prints from the gorilla that Flash had encountered, and immediately called out, "Wait, I've got something!"

Once Flash and Captain America were standing on either side of him, John directed his ring along the path that the prints formed, right up to the point where they had disappeared into a nearby tunnel that went beneath a bridge. Thinking that it would serve as something of a suitable hiding place, the three immediately started making their way towards the tunnel, with John using his ring to give them some light. When they were halfway through, the light from said ring eventually found its way onto the same gorilla that Flash had stopped that same day, who immediately pounded his chest as he let out a roar, startling the three heroes a bit. When he saw Lantern raising his ring towards the gorilla again, Flash immediately realized what John was thinking of doing, and shouted, "No wait! Don't!"

John did not listen, and instead fired the beam of energy he had already started charging, which soon struck its target and sent the silvery haired ape rolling out of the tunnel and onto his back. Once the three had moved to stand in front of the gorilla, said ape sat himself up and asked, "Was that really necessary?"

Green Lantern and Captain America just stood in their in silent shock for a minute until the former finally said, "Okay, so he can talk."

"And apparently, _you_ can't listen," Flash retorted. "What part of 'No wait' did you not understand?"

Seeing his friends were likely to start arguing in a minute, Cap decided to steer the conversation onto the more important topic, which could only be answered by the gorilla in front of them. "Sorry about that. My friend just got a little freaked by your little greeting earlier," Steve started off. "Who are you though?"

"My name is Solovar. I'm chief of security for Gorilla City," the ape replied after he had waved off the apology.

The three heroes exchanged a few disbelieving looks between themselves at Solovar's response before Flash finally said, "Gorilla City? You've gotta be kidding me?"

 _"I know. That is a horrible name. I could've come up with something that was so much better,"_ Cisco said over Flash's comm. device, despite the fact that only the speedster could have heard him.

"I assure you this is no laughing matter," Solovar replied in a serious, grave tone.

That grabbed the heroes' attention, but then again, when someone talks in the way that Solovar was at that moment, it would be hard to ignore no matter what. "Go on," Green Lantern prompted.

Solovar looked up at the stars in remembrance of what had led him to where they were now, and while it started out rather fond, anyone could tell that by the end of his tale, it was anything but. "Safely hidden from humanity, we apes have lived in peace for thousands of years, until the black day when a powered mad genius named Grodd tried to conquer our city with advanced mind control technology. We were able to thwart his evil plot, but we couldn't prevent his escape. It wasn't until later that we discovered he had also stolen our city's security plans. Grodd has sworn terrible revenge on all who reside in Gorilla City."

"So that's why you're here," Flash inquired, though he did not really phrase it like a question.

"Yes, to stop him from carrying out his threats," Solovar confirmed all the same.

"If it's true that he has a mind-control device, that could explain the isotope theft and the scientists' memory loss," Green Lantern reasoned. "Still not seeing how the Hulk is supposed to fit into this though."

"Actually, the green beast you know as the Hulk factors quite heavily into Grodd's plan," Solovar revealed. "Shortly after my arrival to this city, I began looking for any lead I could find that would lead me to Grodd's current location, but shortly after, I was discovered by Grodd, and he subsequently set this Hulk, as you call him, on me. It quickly became clear that Grodd has taken control of the beast's mind and is now using him as additional muscle."

"What about the isotopes though," Captain America asked.

"He needs those isotopes to power his devices," Solovar easily answered.

"So where is he," Flash finally asked.

Solovar did not immediately answer Flash right away, but instead walked over to a nearby bush, which soon faded away during the final steps of his approach to reveal what the three heroes could only assume was a very sophisticated hover bike of some type. Once he had reached the vehicle, Solovar reached into a compartment on the vehicle, pulled out a small, brown briefcase, and then made his way back over to the heroes with both the briefcase and a few papers in hand. "My investigation showed that Grodd had been carrying on an e-mail correspondence with a local scientist; Doctor Sarah Corwin," Solovar finally said in something of an answer to Flash's question.

"I had a feeling she was a bit annoyed by us showing up and investigating the reasons for the robbery, but I thought it was just because of the fact that two of her employees were behind it for reasons that no one could understand," Flash admitted, feeling a bit disappointed that such a respected scientist was probably using her talents for less than positive or beneficial means.

"We'd better call the others," John stated, not knowing that his voicing of the decision just made Flash feel all the more annoyed with how the Lantern had been acting since he showed up in Central City.

"Why? You think we can't handle the guy with just the three of us, or do you just not want to risk me screwing up somehow while you go in with guns blazing and not a care in the world," Flash asked, his tone having almost as much of an edge to it as Batman's typically did.

"I'd just like to avoid taking any unnecessary risks, especially since the Hulk is involved," Green Lantern replied in an even tone, but there was no hiding the fact that there was a bit of an edge to it as well.

"Oh you mean like the risks that come with living in Central City every day, which result from metahuman attacks that I tend to stop pretty easily _without_ the rest of the League muscling in uninvited," Flash retorted, his anger now starting to show a bit more.

"John, maybe it would be better to hold off on contacting the rest of the League until we get a full idea of the situation, otherwise, we'd risk not having anyone able to act in case they were needed somewhere else," Captain America reasoned in another attempt to keep his friends from starting a fight with each other. When the two finally backed down from their near confrontation, Cap looked back to Solovar and asked, "Is there any way we can avoid ending up under Grodd's mind control like the Hulk is?"

"Yes there is," Solovar replied as he reached into the briefcase again and produced a silver headband, the inside of which the three could see had some green circuitry. "These headbands will be able to protect us from Grodd's mind control rays."

The three heroes immediately nodded and accepted the silver devices before quickly placing them on their heads. Once he had done so, Flash looked to Solovar and asked, "I don't suppose you have one in that briefcase that comes in an extra-large size do you? Say something that would fit a guy like our jade giant?"

"Why would we need one for the Hulk," John asked.

"I don't know; maybe because he's being mind controlled, and I seem to recall Banner coming to us begging for help before he changed into the big guy," Flash retorted.

"Let's get to Corwin's lab first and see if she knows where Grodd is, then we can worry about freeing Hulk from his control," Captain America suggested. No one could see anything wrong with that plan, and after exchanging nods of agreement, the three were soon headed back to the lab where the whole mess had started from.

* * *

After they had reached the science facility, John had wanted to scan the area to see if his ring could pick up any positive signs of Grodd being there, but Flash ended up thinking that the Lantern was trying to muscle his way into how the speedster handled things in his city again, so he ended up blowing that idea off and said he would scout ahead just seconds before he vanished into the building a streak of lightning and red without giving anyone a chance to argue with him. With his speed, it was only natural that Flash was able to comb nearly the entire building in a matter of seconds, until all that was left was the lab he, Cap, and Lantern had visited earlier that day when they were speaking with Corwin. It did not take a super genius to realize that was likely where the not-so-good doctor was, and this was easily proven true when Flash raced into the building and eventually paused in his tracks so that Corwin could finally step forward from the shadows in an attempt to hold the speedster at gunpoint. Corwin had just barely told Flash not to move an inch before she pulled the trigger on her weapon, only for Flash to disappear and then reappear next to her so that he could snatch her gun away with a swift burst of speed.

"How…" Corwin started to ask when her hand was suddenly caught in Flash's grasp.

"You blinked," Flash shortly replied, showing just how annoyed he was with his former-marine teammate when he spoke. "Where's Grodd?"

"I don't know what you mean," Corwin replied a little too quickly.

"Don't play cute with me, Doc," Flash retorted as he easily disassembled the weapon in a manner of seconds. "Grodd: your little monkey pen-pal. Where is…"

Flash the one who was cut off this time, but unlike the doctor, it was not because someone else was speaking up, but instead, because he was soon met with a large, black furred fist that sent him flying across a nearby lab table. A quick glance upwards allowed Corwin's gaze to land on the form of Grodd himself as he dropped down from the perch he had been hanging on since he noticed the heroes' arrival outside. "Foolish humans," Grodd chuckled as he picked up a gold helmet that was on a nearby table and placed it upon his head. "They are so easily predictable, aren't they Doctor?"

Corwin only had a few seconds to nod in agreement before the wall to the outside was suddenly blown open by Green Lantern's ring, drawing the two's attention to the three who had not come in with Flash earlier as John readied his ring for action while Solovar leveled his blaster on Grodd and Captain America simply took up a ready stance. "Don't move Grodd," Solovar warned.

"Solovar. You're a fool to come here," Grodd remarked as though he were greeting an old friend while admonishing said friend at the same time.

"And you can't control us while we're wearing these headbands," Captain America pointed out.

"Actually, Captain, I wasn't thinking of controlling any of you, or even Flash here," Grodd revealed as the red dial on his helmet glowed a little. "Why would I even bother attempting to do so, when I already control the most powerful human in the world?"

At that point, another wall was blown open, but this time it was accompanied by a very loud roar of anger, drawing the three's attention to where the Hulk had just burst into the room with a very angry, yet still extremely blank expression on his face. Hulk's entrance had ended up being more than enough to rouse Flash back into action, and he quickly dashed away from the lab table he had been laying on while playing possum in hopes of getting the other guys off guard, and over to where the others were as Hulk advanced towards them. That was when something none of them were expecting happened; just as he was about to reach them, the Hulk paused in his tracks and started shaking like he was fighting against himself in an attempt to stop himself from doing what Grodd wanted him to.

"What do you think you're doing," Grodd demanded. "Destroy them. Now."

"N…No…Hulk…not monster…will not…let stupid monkey…" the big guy struggled to growl.

"Well I must admit, you're resistance to my control is impressive for a human, but ultimately futile in the end," Grodd confessed as he increased the power of his helmet in an attempt to thwart Hulk's efforts of breaking free of his control.

When Hulk just roared in response, Lantern saw this as a chance to stop the guy for good, and instantly readied his ring to fire what he hoped would be a strong enough blast to subdue the Hulk for a while. Before he had a chance to fire though, he found his shot being blocked by his teammate as Flash raced forward thinking he could help Hulk break free of Grodd's control. "Hey big guy, come on. We don't want to fight you, and I get the feeling you don't want to fight us either," Flash reasoned. "If you can fight him off that much, then you should be able to fight him off completely, right? You're stronger than him and whatever stupid gizmo he's got. You just gotta remember who you are. You're Bruce Banner."

At first it seemed like Flash's attempt was working, but the minute he said that last sentence, the Hulk's hand had instantly snapped out and caught the speedster in its grasp, allowing Hulk to slam Flash into the wall with a force that would likely have caused any average person's bones to shatter. "Guess I should've warned you," Grodd mused in false apology. "He doesn't like it when people mention 'Puny Banner.'"

Seeing his friend in trouble while he still had a perfect shot, Green Lantern instantly acted and fired everything his ring had at the Hulk. The blast might not have been as strong as he would have liked it to be, due to the fact that he would have risked accidentally hurting Flash if it was, but it was still enough to blast Hulk off of the scarlet speedster and across the lab. That act had quickly earned him the Hulk's attention, and John was instantly raising an energy shield in an attempt to block the powerful punch that the gamma giant was soon sending at him. When the shield shattered and John was knocked back by the shockwave, Solovar and Captain America took their chance to jump in, with the captain charging directly towards Hulk with his shield forward while Solovar fired his blaster. Hulk easily shrugged off the blasts that were being fired at him, and was thus able to easily backhand Captain America away from him without any worries of being hurt by Solovar's blasts. With the super soldier out of the way for the moment, Hulk was free to charge Solovar and slam the ape into a nearby wall, knocking Solovar unconscious for the moment, and leaving him open for Hulk to finish off.

Thankfully, a certain vibranium shield redirected Hulk's attention from the unconscious gorilla and onto the super soldier that had caught said shield on his arm upon its return trip, and Captain America was quickly moving as fast as he could to avoid getting hit by the gamma giant again. During this time, Lantern and Flash were both able to get back to their feet again, and it was just in time to wince a little when they saw Cap actually land a hard kick to the Hulk in the one place where no man ever wanted to be hit. "I don't know if that's incredibly brave or the ultimate act of stupidity," Green Lantern mused as he used his ring to start forming a construct he could use to fight.

"I think it really depends on who it is that did it," Flash reasoned with a small smile, but that expression quickly turned to a scowl when he saw John's construct was a pair of large guns that was clearly meant for the Hulk. "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing with those," Flash demanded after he had run up to Lantern.

"What do you think I'm doing with them? Helping Cap take down a major, hostile threat," John replied like it was obvious.

"In case you forgot, he's not doing this of his own free will. He's being controlled by Grodd," Flash reminded John.

"I know that, and that's why we need to take him down before he kills us or someone else," John retorted. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but that's just how it is sometimes."

"And maybe you need to stop trying to muscle everyone into doing things the way you think is best and try actually listening to the guys who know what they're doing for once," Flash snapped, surprising John a bit with how angrily the speedster had sounded. "You may be in charge of keeping this whole space sector thing safe or whatever, but Central City is my territory, my responsibility, so if you really want to help keep it safe, then stop trying to treat this like some marine op and try actually doing things my way for once!"

If John was only a little surprised by Flash's sudden show of anger before, he was completely overwhelmed by it now, but he had to admit that the speedster had a point. While none of them were as sensitive about it as Batman, there was something of an unspoken rule among the heroes who protected a specific city over the rest of the world like how Superman did with Metropolis or Flash with Central City, and that rule was that if they asked another hero for help, then the other guy needed to at least try to let the local hero take the lead for the most part. Looking back, John had to admit that he had been acting like he was the one in charge here, but that was mostly due to the fact that most the times he was around Flash, the speedster was not really the most serious person in the room. At that moment though, John was finally seeing just how much of Flash's easy-going nature was really an act for the sake of the rest of the League, because there was no denying how tense most of the members tended to get in certain situations, and if it were not for Flash's ability to remain optimistic in even the darkest of times, there would be no telling where they would have ended up. After letting this sink in for a bit, John and Flash's attention was soon brought back to the matter at hand when Captain America was suddenly thrown through another wall by the Hulk, and John immediately said, "Alright, what's your plan?"

"Just try to keep Hulk busy for a while," Flash stated. "But do so without trying to hurt him too much."

Once the speedster had zipped away in his usual rush of speed, John could not help but mutter to himself, "He should probably be telling that Jade-Jaws over there."

If Flash had heard John's comment, he paid it no mind, but instead quickly grabbed one of the remaining headbands that Solovar had brought with him and started racing around the battlefield until he could find a suitable position to charge the Hulk from. Being able to move as fast as Flash does meant that he was able to find such a location in a matter of seconds and without being harmed by anything that was being thrown out by either side, be it Green Lantern's energy blasts, Captain America's thrown shield, or Hulk's huge fist. All Flash had to do now was wait for the right moment to make his charge, and he did not have to wait long. A moment after the speedster had gotten into position, Cap had somehow managed to knock Hulk off balance long enough for John to restrain him with as strong of a construct as he could manage against the Hulk's strength, and that was when Flash made his move, running straight towards the jade giant as fast as he could. While the world around him seemed to slow down, Flash jumped up onto a table that was close to Hulk and continued running towards the big guy until he was able to get on the Hulk's back long enough to slap the headband on Hulk's head. Such an action was not easy at first, as the headband did not fit so easily right away, but thankfully, the device was able to expand to accommodate the large size of Hulk's head, and the big guy soon fell flat on his face after Flash had jumped off of him and ran back over to his friends.

Seeing that the Hulk was now unconscious and likely free of Grodd's control, John could not help but pause for a moment as he looked from Flash to Hulk before he finally said, "Alright, I'll admit it; that was actually a good plan."

"Thank you," Flash nodded. "Now let's get Solovar up and go after Grodd. I saw him heading off to another lab with Corwin a couple of minutes ago."

The other two heroes immediately nodded in agreement, and then wasted no time in getting Solavar up again before heading off in the direction Flash had seen Grodd and the doctor leave in. When they reached the entrance of the room in question, Captain America raised a hand as a silent signal for everyone to wait a moment before they went charging in, and the group immediately moved to stand against the wall near the door as they heard the sounds of machinery powering up coming from inside, along with the voices of both Grodd and the Corwin. After moving towards the door as silently as they could, Cap and Solovar both glanced into the room, and were immediately greeted with the sight of a large, sophisticated device, which Corwin seemed to be powering up while Grodd was climbing aboard a hover bike like the one that Solovar was using.

"The system is operational," Corwin reported.

"Then we'll take our leave," Grodd nodded, allowing Corwin to climb aboard once she had finished, but he found himself halting their departure when Solovar decided that they could not wait any longer.

"Not this time," the silver ape shouted, and he quickly opened fire on the traitor to Gorilla City. Sadly, none of his shots ever so much as grazed the two, as they were intercepted by a transparent barrier that Solovar clearly recognized if the look of fearful shock on his face was any indication.

Grodd on the other hand could not have looked more smug as he casually drove his escape vehicle over to an exit on the other side of the barrier, and called out, "My apologies for the hasty exit, but I have a city to destroy!"

When Grodd hit the trigger on a small, black remote, the machine that Corwin had been preparing instantly came blazing to life with a large, orange and yellow orb forming in the center before said orb started to expand and grow. Seeing the look of distress on Solovar's face was all the indication that the heroes needed to tell them that they needed to stop the device from activating, and Lantern instantly fired everything his ring could spare at the device, hoping to destroy it. Sadly, his efforts had no more success at breaking through the shield than Solavar's gun had, and the same was soon apparent when Flash tried to vibrate himself through the barrier so he could try to shut it down from the control console that Corwin was using. Seeing that his friends were not succeeding in slowing the energy orb's expansion, Captain America immediately dived towards Solovar and moved the ape behind him so that his shield would be taking as much of the damage from Grodd's device as possible, but even his indestructible shield could not keep the energy sphere Grodd had activated at bay, and soon enough, all of their group were met with an incredible flash of light before they all lost consciousness.

* * *

Flash was not sure how long he was out for this time, but he was not entirely sure he wanted to know, given what had happened before he had been knocked out. The first thing the speedster registered as he started to come around though, was that he was definitely alive, somehow, and the second thing he noticed, was that someone or something was gently nudging his side. When Flash finally came to completely, the first thing he registered was that something really big and green was standing over him, and considering that it was too big to be Green Lantern, that only left one possibility as to who it was standing over him. As soon as his accelerated healing had managed to bring him around completely, Flash was back on his feet and racing a reasonable distance away before leveling his gaze with the Hulk, who had previously been kneeling over him a minute ago, and said, "Okay big guy, I know we probably didn't get off on the right foot or anything, but before you try to smash me, try to remember that my friends and I freed you from Grodd's mind control, so please don't smash me."

Hulk just stared at Flash for a minute, until finally the jade giant did something that Barry was not expecting at all; Hulk started laughing. "Streaky funny," Hulk said as he pointed at Flash.

"Uh…so you're not going to hurt me or my friends," Flash asked, just to make sure he understood correctly.

Hulk's laugh immediately died down at that question, and he scowled a little before growling, "Hulk not hurt anyone. Hulk smashes bad people and stupid Ross."

"Right sorry," Flash immediately replied. "But I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't smash me or my friends before I started waking them up."

Hulk turned to glance over the other two Leaguers and Solavar for a minute, and then looked back at Flash as he said, "Hulk going to hit Glow-Stick for shooting Hulk, but not smash Streaky's friends."

Flash considered Hulk's words for a minute and eventually nodded in acceptance before he started waking up the other three. True to his word, the minute Green Lantern was awake again Hulk did indeed punch John for blasting him, much to the Lantern's irritation until Flash explained the reasoning behind said action. John just nodded in begrudging acceptance of the reason, and then looked to the green giant and asked, "Why'd you stay and wait for us to wake up, anyway?"

"Hulk wanted to punch Glow-Stick for shooting at him, but Hulk also wanted to make sure puny Justice League not hurt since stupid bad monkey made Hulk try to smash Justice League," Hulk replied with a snarl. "Hulk hate stupid bad monkey. Hulk smash monkey!"

"Easy there, soldier, we'll get Grodd, but let's come up with a plan first since it seems that Grodd's device wasn't meant to kill us," Captain America calmly reasoned with Hulk.

"Maybe we should start by getting some backup," Green Lantern suggested, throwing Flash a quick look to make sure that was okay with him. When the speedster nodded to show that he agreed, John immediately tapped his League communicator in an attempt to reach the Watchtower, only to be met with static instead. "My comm. link's offline," John informed the others.

"…Mine too," Flash revealed after he made his own attempt to contact the League's space-based headquarters.

"Same here," Captain America added as he lowered his hand from his own attempt.

"And for good reason," Solovar stated, drawing everyone's attention to where the silver gorilla was standing, looking out towards the sky through the hole that he, Lantern, and Cap had all come in through. When the four looked out to see what Solavar was looking at, they did not need long to see what looked to be a strange, distorted barrier that almost appeared to be like a fog over the city with how it made the night sky seem so hard to see.

"What is that," Flash gasped, his concern and worry showing through his voice.

"It's just like the shield that protects my city," Solovar stated. "Nothing can get in…"

"Or out," Captain America finished.

"Unless I can shut down the generator," Green Lantern argued as he turned towards the room that the generator was located in. Once he was standing before the generator, Green Lantern fired everything he had at the generator, but his blast was easily blocked and deflected by the energy field surrounding it as well much to nearly everyone's surprise.

"Whoa. Not even a scratch," Flash gasped in shock, having hardly ever seen something remain so unscathed after being hit by a blast from John's ring.

"Gorilla technology is highly advanced," Solovar reasoned.

"Humph. Techno-thingy is techno-thingy, and all techno-thingies can be smashed," Hulk roared, and soon enough he too was trying to break the generator. Hulk's efforts were impressive, but they did not yield anymore results than Green Lantern's did. Even so, Hulk did not seem like he was planning on giving up in his attempts to smash the generator anytime soon.

Seeing this, Flash immediately ran up to the big guy and said, "Easy there, Hulk. Don't want to tire yourself out wasting strength like that. If you want to help stop Grodd, then we're gonna need everyone at their best."

Hulk looked between the generator and Flash for a minute, as if he were honestly weighing his options, until he finally huffed, "Fine. Hulk can smash shield-thingy later."

"Then come; we must find Grodd," Solovar stated as he turned to lead the way out of the building.

"Wait a minute. Gimme one good reason why we should let this guy tag along," John asked as he pointed to Hulk. "He's done nothing but cause mindless destruction without a care in the world from day one."

"Doesn't seem so mindless or careless to me," Captain America pointed out, with Flash nodding in agreement.

"Hulk not smash carelessly anymore. Hulk not smash like that in long time," Hulk growled in revelation. "Hulk just want to be left alone because stupid people think Hulk is monster, but stupid Ross just chase and attack Hulk. Blames Hulk for destruction Ross caused."

"Look, none of us are gonna lie and say that Ross is the greatest guy to be around, but why would he be after you at all," Flash asked.

Hulk seemed to gain far off look, as if he were remembering something, until he finally explained, "Because Ross wants to make more of Hulk. Abomination, Zzzax, the Leader, all Ross' attempts to make more of Hulk in same way that Hulk was born. Ross wants to make army of Hulk because he thinks Hulk is just a monster that's only good as a weapon."

The three Leaguers all exchanged surprised looks at this new information. They were all able to tell that Ross did not care about who got in his line of fire if it meant he could get the Hulk, but they had no idea that it was for something like this, or even that he was that desperate to get what he wanted. It really made them wonder how no one had managed to figure out that this was Ross' true intention yet, even if someone in the government was trying to cover it all up. Eventually, Steve had to ask, "How were you created Hulk?"

"Puny Banner scientist that was supposed to help create more of you for Ross, Flag-Man," Hulk revealed. "Thought he could do it with gamma rays. Didn't work the way Banner wanted it to, and Hulk was end result."

That definitely made Steve mad. He knew that a lot of people would have wanted to recreate Erskine's serum, but to hear that someone like Ross wanted to do so in a way that resulted in something like this was definitely not something that the super soldier was pleased with at all. Looking over to his teammates, he quickly got a nod in reply from Flash, and eventually from John as well, which prompted Captain America to ask, "Do you really want to not let people get hurt?"

"Hulk not want to hurt anyone unless they hurt Hulk or someone else," the gamma giant replied.

"Well then help us stop Grodd, because if he gets away with this, a lot of people will get hurt," Steve reasoned.

"Hulk already wants to smash stupid bad monkey. Don't need Flag-Man, Glow-Stick, Streaky, or other monkey's help," Hulk growled.

"We're not saying you do need our help; we're saying that we need your help," Flash stated. That got Hulk to pause for a minute in confusion, allowing the speedster to explain, "We have no idea what Grodd's planning, and depending on how tough his mind control tech is, there's a good chance that Ross' guys and a lot of other people are now under his control. These headbands that we're all wearing right now may keep us safe from that mind control, but we'll still need a lot of muscle if we want to help the people of my city." When Hulk did not say anything in response to this, Flash continued to press on. "Look big guy, this is my hometown, and I don't want to see it be destroyed in any way at all, but when it comes to something like this, I can't save it alone, and that's why I'm asking…no, I'm _begging_ you to help me save my home. Please."

Hulk did not need to hear the desperation in Flash's voice to know the speedster was being completely honest in what he said, but that did not mean he was willing to help with this either, because he knew that once this was all over, no one would admit that he had helped, and they would all go right back to treating him like a monster again. He was about to say no and leave, when another voice that only he could hear suddenly made itself known to him. "You really should help."

Turning to glance in the voice's direction, Hulk was soon greeted with the image of Bruce Banner. The gamma scientist had started talking to Hulk in his mind like this a while back, and vice-versa, each of them voicing their opinions on matters at times, but the one thing that Banner would always try to convince Hulk of was that he could prove to the world that he was one of the good guys, despite how often Hulk had made it clear to his other half that he did not believe it for a second. "You're already planning to go after Grodd, so why not help them," Banner continued to press on. "Can you really just ignore how desperate Flash is to save his home? What if this were Vista Verde and they were the only hope we had of saving it?"

"Doesn't matter. It'll just end the same way as it always does. Besides, Hulk not remember Justice League coming to help him before," Hulk argued aloud, drawing confused looks from everyone when they saw Hulk talking to thin air like that.

"Maybe it won't," Banner stated. "It's like I keep telling you. Walk away from a situation where you can help, and you really will be a monster. More importantly, if people see you standing with other heroes, helping them save lives, then maybe people will start to see the Hulk as a hero as well; that you can be a force for good."

Hulk seemed to regard Banner's words for a few more minutes before he finally looked back to the heroes, who were still looking at him weirdly for apparently talking to himself like that, and said, "Alright, Hulk help save Streaky's city from bad monkey."

Flash just beamed in response to this while John let out a silent sigh of exasperation at hearing that they were actually accepting help from someone like the Hulk, and with that, the five quickly departed from what was left of the research labs to chase after Grodd.

* * *

When the group first made it back into Central City, they were a bit put off by the fact that the city seemed like a near ghost town at first, until they followed the sounds of an excited crowd to the center of Flash's hometown to see that everyone had gathered there as Grodd gave a rather long-winded speech on how the age of humanity was over and how Central City would be the starting point for Grodd's new empire once Gorilla City was destroyed, and from the way that the people were cheering for him, it was clear that they were too late to stop Grodd from taking over the minds of everyone in the city. When asked if he had anymore headbands to break Grodd's control, Solovar had to sadly inform the heroes that he did not have nearly enough for the entirety of Central City, or even enough to break the hold Grodd now had over the entirety of Ross' Hulkbuster Unit that was standing guard around the perimeter of the gathering.

Seeing as they would not be very likely to reach Grodd without going through Ross' troops and the possessed people of Central City, the five dropped back a little bit so that they could start drawing up some theories on what Grodd's exact plan was and how to stop it. That was when John brought up something that had been bothering him since they left the science labs. "Why would he come to Central City in the first place," the Green Lantern asked.

"Uh, care to explain the reasoning for that question," Flash requested.

"Why would Grodd come to Central City? Aside from Doctor Corwin, there's no real reason for him to come here, and even after he met her, he could've just left with her to go somewhere else, like someplace that was a bit more secluded and out of the way, but he stayed here to carry out his plans," John explained. "Even with all the metahuman activity in this city, it doesn't really make much sense as to what Grodd could gain that would help him achieve what he wants."

"Well he did have the Hulk under his control. Maybe he took control of the big guy to get Ross and his men out here. They are equipped with some serious hardware," Captain America suggested.

"No, stupid monkey started trying to control Hulk after Puny Banner came into town and went to science place," Hulk argued. "Thought he could ask some old science friends for help in hiding from Ross since he was already close behind."

"So Hulk was just an improvised part of the plan," Flash reasoned, his face scrunched up in thought as he tried to think of a reason for Grodd choosing Central City as his starting point, until it sudden clicked for him. "He must've come here to get his hands on the military base."

"There's a military base in Central City," Solovar asked.

"It's actually right on the edge of the city," Flash explained. "They set it up shortly after the event that created all of the metahumans in the first place as a way to contain the situation in case it ever got out of control…and that base is armed with a number of missiles that could destroy Gorilla City."

"Assuming they could get through the force field around the city," Captain America pointed out.

"Grodd was one of the brightest minds in Gorilla City. Not only will he be able to get those missiles through the barrier, I have no doubt that he'll also be able to force Gorilla City's shield to shut down remotely without ever leaving wherever he is now," Solovar stated.

"Then we've got to get to that military base before he does," Green Lantern stated, and no one had any arguments on the matter, for a minute after he had said that, the five were soon racing off again in the hopes that they would reach the military base before Grodd did. Unfortunately, they arrived too late, as evidenced by the sight of Grodd's hover bike being parked at the entrance.

After knocking out a possessed guard that had tried to stop them, Solovar quickly broke through the gate and shouted, "Hurry, before Grodd finds out we're here!"

When an alarm suddenly started ringing throughout the base, Hulk quickly said, "Hulk thinks stupid bad monkey already knows."

"No, that's a launch alert," Green Lantern shouted in alarm, and he was proven right when four missiles suddenly burst forth from their containment bays in the ground and flew straight up into the sky.

Without wasting a minute, Cap quickly climbed aboard Grodd's hover bike and started flying it towards the missiles as he shouted, "Lantern and I will go after the missiles. Flash, you, Solovar, and Hulk stop Grodd!"

With Cap's orders given, the team quickly split into their assigned groups with Lantern immediately flying after the super soldier as fast as his ring could take him and Flash turning to lead both Hulk and Solovar into the base. Before they went in though, Solovar had to ask, "How did Captain America figure out how to operate that hover bike so quickly?"

"He must've been watching very closely when he saw you driving yours," Flash answered. "Cap's got a photographic memory, so it was probably easy for him to figure it out. More importantly, how're we going to stop Grodd?"

"We smash him," Hulk growled as he punched a fist into his palm.

"Yeah, that's a given, but it's not going to be that straight forward, Hulk," Flash explained.

"Hulk knows that; Hulk not dumb," the jade giant snapped. "And Hulk has plan."

Flash was a bit skeptical at first about any plan that Hulk might have, along with the idea that Hulk was not dumb given how the guy talked, but after hearing what the big guy had in mind, Flash could not stop himself from smiling in approval of the idea that the gamma giant had come up with, and simply said, "Yeah, that ought to work."

* * *

Batman was not really sure how his day could go from just a typical routine thing to something that was completely crazy like the situation he was in right now. It had all started out peaceful enough, or at least as peaceful as it could be when someone lives in Gotham, when Diana had contacted him and told him that Central City had seemingly vanished, while an energy field of some type was now covering the area where Flash's city once was. After getting the specifics of the energy dome from the scanners in the Javelin, it was an easy enough task for the Bat-Computer to track down any similar or matching energy patterns to the dome around Central City's location, which had led Batman, J'onn, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Woman out to Africa where another dome that was practically identical to the first one was located. Batman had managed to arrive a little sooner than the other three and was thus able to get a few scans to confirm that the energy fields were identical to one another, but before the four could investigate any further, something suddenly sprang out of the nearby grass and shot them, rendering them all unconscious.

When the Leaguers eventually came around again, they were all shackled in what was obviously a prison cell. This was of no surprise to any of them, seeing as they had been captured by various different types of individuals before, each of which had failed to detain the heroes for very long, but what did come as a surprise was that this time around, their captors were intelligent gorillas. Aside from this fact, the only thing that they learned about the situation was that they were in a place called Gorilla City, and these apes seemed to think that they were spies who were trying to bring harm to their home. There was also the fact that J'onn was unable to phase through his restraints, but that just meant that Batman would end up having to be the one who would be the first to break free, so while the apes were interrogating the others, Batman took the time to use one of his lock-picks to open his own restraints. Batman did not really like the idea of using the others as decoys while he tried to escape, especially given the treatment that they were being subjected to as they tried to tell their captors their reasons for being here in the first place, but at the moment, the Dark Knight could not really see any other options.

"Quit stalling spy," an ape with a large scar over his left eye growled after he had slammed J'onn against the cell wall. "Tell me who sent you!"

"No one sent us," J'onn repeated for the umpteenth time since this interrogation had begun.

"LIES," the ape shouted, and he immediately slapped J'onn down to the floor again while the other three could only watch for the moment. "I want the truth, or you'll all pay most dearly! I'll give you all one last chance," the ape informed the Leaguers before his gaze finally came to rest on Hawkgirl. "Starting with you."

"Take your best shot," Shayera challenged.

The scarred ape intended to do just that, but just as he was reeling his paw back to strike the redheaded Leaguer, Batman finally made his move, showing that he had managed to finally break free when he did, by throwing a powerful bola at the ape. The gorilla was soon wrapped up tightly in Batman's weapon, his arms pinned to his side, and Batman was quick to fire a grapple towards the ceiling so that he was soon flying upwards above everyone. With this new vantage point, Batman was easily able to toss a batarang into Diana's cuffs, allowing her to break free as well and toss one of the guards aside like a rag doll before he could fire even a single shot at the hero of Gotham. Hawkgirl then took the chance to leap up and slam her knee into their interrogator's chin before using her wings to put her just high enough above him so that she could bring both of her feet down on him to further knock him out of the fight. Eventually, Batman released his line's hold on the ceiling and quickly knocked out another pair of the gorilla guards with a few quick punches after tossing another batarang into J'onn's cuffs. When another gorilla was about to shoot him, Diana stepped in the way and deflected the blasts with her bracelets, letting J'onn finally break free and land a finishing blow. Soon enough, the four Leaguers had subdued each of their captors with minimal difficulty at all, which showed just how greatly these apes had underestimated the heroes, and after they had confirmed the apes were all knocked out, the team paused only long enough for J'onn to free Shayera from her own restraints and then let Hawkgirl retrieve her mace from where it had been set down on the ground.

"Let's go," Hawkgirl told everyone as she charged up her weapon, and with a powerful cry of effort, she was easily able to open a hole in the wall that the team was able to slip through so that they could leave Gorilla City. They soon saw more reason as to why the place was named as such, as the whole city seemed to possess technology that was likely years beyond anything anyone on Earth had at the moment, judging by the design of the buildings and vehicles alone, and everywhere they looked, they were greeted with the sight of gorillas walking around and going about their day like any other humans would in another big city, at least until they spotted the Justice League passing by and started to panic a little, some even shouting to call for security after they had seen the heroes.

"What madness is this," Diana wondered aloud.

"Let's not wait around to find out," Hawkgirl suggested, and she quickly picked up her pace a little so that she was flying just a little distance ahead of both Diana and J'onn, making a beeline for the edge of the city where they hoped that their transports were still waiting for them with Batman following as close behind as he could on foot and with a few swings from his grapple. Just when it seemed like they were home free, the two women of the League suddenly struck the very barrier they had been investigating earlier with a force that felt similar to colliding with a brick wall. Thankfully, J'onn was able to swoop down and catch both of his female teammates before they had hit the ground just as Batman had finally managed to catch up with them, but the downside was that now they were cornered and surrounded by a small army of the intelligent apes, all riding on hover bikes with weapons aimed at them.

"Try to escape like that again, and I promise you will regret it," the interrogator from before warned the Leaguers. Both groups were more than willing to start fighting each other again, but before they could, the barrier behind the League seemed to shimmer and ripple in a way that immediately caused a state of alarm amongst the apes. "The shield wall! It's shutting down," the ape with a scarred eye exclaimed. "Get it back up, immediately!"

"It's not responding," an ape who was working a control tablet soon reported after tapping a few of the controls. "Someone's overridden the system."

"Grodd," the lead ape growled in a low tone of anger.

"Sir, defense scans have detected armed missiles headed this way," another ape then reported as he pulled up alongside his commander. "What are your orders?"

The leader of the apes did not hesitate to give the requested orders, but it was not an order that he ever thought he would have to give. "Evacuate the city, immediately."

"But what about the humans," a brown furred gorilla asked.

"I've got bigger problems now," the leader retorted as he turned his bike around to head back into the city, but he was soon freezing in his departure when one of said humans suddenly spoke up.

"Maybe we can help," Wonder Woman offered.

The ape was surprised that four people they had previously been holding prisoner under the suspicion of being spies would be so willing to offer any help to them, but he was really more skeptical about one thing than anything else. "What can you possibly do to save us," the leading gorilla inquired in full disbelief.

The four members of the Justice League merely exchanged a confident look between themselves before Hawkgirl hefted her mace with a smirk and said only two words in reply. "Just watch."

* * *

Grodd was feeling really good right now. Sure he may have lost what little control he had over the Hulk, but that was only a minor setback in his grand scheme, because he had achieved everything else he needed to win in the end. He gained access to the missiles in the military base, launched said missiles at Gorilla City, and now all he had to do was just sit back and wait for about five minutes or so until at least one of those missiles hit his former home. Grodd's revenge was now well within in his reach, and nothing could prevent him from achieving it now. Or at least, that is what it seemed like until Corwin told him something he had not expected to hear.

"Missile Number One deactivated," the doctor stated, stirring Grodd from any thoughts he had of taking a nap until the missiles had hit.

"What happened," the traitor to Gorilla City demanded.

"Best guess: it was either my buddy with the power ring or my patriotic pal with the indestructible shield," a voice that was quickly becoming irritatingly familiar replied, causing Grodd to turn around and see Flash, Solavar, and Hulk standing in the doorway.

"You again," Grodd grumbled.

"Grodd, you're under arrest for crimes against Gorilla City," Solavar stated.

"In five more minutes, there won't _be_ a Gorilla City," Grodd retorted.

"And in a minute, Grodd will be smashed," Hulk roared in retort, and he immediately prepared to charge the evil gorilla, only to stop in his tracks when what appeared to be a web suddenly splattered into his face.

"What the…" Flash started to say, only to be interrupted when his legs were suddenly trapped in webs as well along with Solavar's gun hand. Looking to where the shot had come from, Flash had to gasp in shock when he saw Spider-Man sitting on the ceiling above them with one hand still pointed towards them ready to fire more webs.

Grodd could only smirk at the speedster's look of disbelief before he boasted, "You didn't think that Hulk was the only 'menace to society' I had placed under my control, did you? You'd be surprised how much help Spider-Man's been in making sure I get here with no one even realizing it."

Flash was immediately reminded of when Steve had told him earlier that Spider-Man had gone missing a few weeks ago, and now the reason had been thrown right in his face, much to his shock. After another minute of staring at the web-head, Flash found the only thing he could say in response to this was, "This is so not what I had envisioned when I pictured my first meeting with Spider-Man."

* * *

Captain America and Green Lantern's pursuit of the missiles that Grodd had fired was definitely something that would cause even Batman to be on the edge of his seat, given how fast the two were having to go just to keep up with the projectiles, but thankfully, John's ring and Cap's commandeered hover bike were able to get the job done relatively easily. After a few minutes of flying said vehicle, Cap could not help but smirk a little as he made a mental note to ask Stark to consider designing something like this for him later on, or even to try making some modifications to his own motorcycle so that it was flight capable, especially since there was only so much he could do to help out the League when most of its members were able to fly. That was a matter for another day though, because right now, they needed to focus on stopping the missiles.

The first missile was easily taken out thanks to John's ring, but he was forced to move back a little after he had disarmed the thing so that he would not be caught in the explosion that had resulted from his efforts. Thankfully, Captain America had managed to press on ahead, knowing that John would be able to disable that first missile easily enough, so he was soon close enough to the second missile to jump off the hover bike and onto the missile itself. After he had situated himself at the point where he would be right above where the detonator was located, Cap slammed the edge of his shield into the missile's outer shell and pried the metal aside so that he could reach in and pull out the wires that he needed to disconnect in order to disarm the missile. With that done, Cap immediately leapt clear of the missile, back down onto the hover bike, which he somehow managed to set to autopilot before jumping on the missile, and flew away before the missile could explode.

Captain America was glad that he had disabled the missile, but his mood soon changed when he saw that a large piece of metal from the missile had struck John in the head, rendering him unconscious as a result. Steve was quick to react, and immediately redirected his bike so that he would come up right underneath John, allowing him to catch the Green Lantern before he fell to his death on the mountains of Africa. Once he had a firm grip on John, Steve pulled his teammate onto the bike and then fired its engines to their maximum output so that they could reach the last two before they hit their target, but sadly, at their current pace, it did not seem likely that they would make it in time.

* * *

"Missile Number Two deactivated," Corwin gasped in shock when she lost the signal from the missile that was just disabled by Captain America.

Grodd just scowled in response while Solavar smirked and said, "Even with us pinned down like this, you've still lost, Grodd."

"No! I won't lose to the likes of you," Grodd protested as he lunged at Solavar, only to be intercepted by Hulk before he could reach his old enemy.

"Hulk told stupid monkey that he would get smashed," Hulk grinned in excitement, only to find his fist being held back by another of Spider-Man's webs.

"Seems like you're having a bit of trouble with that today, doesn't it," Grodd mocked the Hulk, and he took his own swing at the gamma giant, allowing for him to be released from the hold that Hulk had on him and then continue charging towards Solavar.

Just when he was about to be within arm's reach of Solavar though, Grodd was suddenly knocked to the side, courtesy of Flash much to the mind-controlling gorilla's shock. "How did you…" Grodd started to ask.

"I can vibrate my molecules so fast that I'm able to phase through solid objects without any trouble," Flash boasted. "Didn't think of that when you had Webs try and tie me down, did you?"

Grodd just snarled at the speedster and then tried to retaliate for the strike that Flash had made on him, but Central City's defender was easily able to stay ahead of Grodd's strikes thanks to his super speed until he finally disappeared from sight completely. While Flash continued to keep Grodd busy, Hulk managed to get Spider-Man in a firm hold that the web-swinger could not escape from and slid the headband that Flash had placed on him earlier onto Spidey's head, freeing New York's friendly neighborhood hero from Grodd's mind control. "Huh? Who? What? Where," Spider-Man asked with a start before he realized the position he was in. "Uh…please tell me you're just giving me a bear hug and not about to crush my bones."

Hulk just smirked in reply as he let Spidey go and said, "Hulk not want to smash Bug-Man. Just stupid monkey that was controlling Bug-Man."

"Stupid monkey? And Bug-Man? Seriously," Spider-Man inquired in disbelief until he saw Flash giving Grodd the run-around in more ways than one. "Oh, right. Now I remember. I was responding to a call about an escaped gorilla on the loose when suddenly everything went black. You mean that I was being controlled by said gorilla the whole time?"

"Yep," Hulk nodded.

At that response, Spider-Man's eyes immediately narrowed behind his mask, and he immediately web-zipped himself towards Grodd, allowing him to land a hard kick on the black furred gorilla after Grodd had found himself suddenly off-balance because of Flash's constant evasion of his hits. "Hey, King Kong! Nobody makes a monkey out of me and gets to walk away so easily," Spider-Man shouted. "Oh and by the way, you are _not_ getting any bananas from me anytime soon!"

Grodd immediately kicked Spider-Man in the chest for that remark and said, "That was for both that banana joke and the one you made when we first met. I _hate_ bananas."

"Good to know," Flash stated as he suddenly ran up and hit Grodd with a punch that was backed up by the amount of energy he had gathered from his super speed charge.

Grodd was about to launch another attack on the two heroes in retaliation when he noticed that Hulk was no longer wearing a headband to block out his mind control, and he immediately grinned in response. "Destroy these pathetic humans, monster," Grodd commanded as he directed his helmet's powers onto Hulk. For a minute it seemed like Grodd was going to successfully take control of Hulk once again, but then, the evil gorilla was suddenly knocked back by an unseen force while the Hulk just roared in anger. "Impossible," Grodd protested. "How could you…"

Hulk's answer to Grodd's question was instantly roared out before he could finish, while the gamma giant punctuated it with a shockwave that was brought about by clapping his hands together. "NO ONE CONTROLS THE HULK!"

* * *

Captain America was now gritting his teeth in desperation as he tried his hardest to catch up to the last two missiles before they could reach Gorilla City, but there was no hiding the fact that even if John were to wake up now, it would not make a difference. This was made clear to the Green Lantern when he finally woke up and asked, "What happened? Did we stop all the missiles?"

"No. We're too late," Captain America said with despair, prompting John to widen his eyes in shock when he realized just how far behind the last two missiles they were. It only took a few seconds for John to realize why they had lost so much ground, and he was quick to bow his head in shame for the fact that they probably would have managed to stop all the missiles if he had managed to avoid that slab of metal that hit him and Cap had not been forced to turn around to save him from falling to his death. His pity party was short lived though, because his attention was quickly brought forward once again when Cap suddenly said, "Wait, what's that?"

The thing that Captain America had spotted was actually J'onn, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Woman flying up from Gorilla City to intercept the missiles before they could get much closer, much to both Green Lantern and Captain America's surprise. When they saw J'onn phase through one of the missiles in order to retrieve its control box, John quickly leapt off of the hover bike to fly over to his Martian teammate just in time to see J'onn crush the item in question. "How'd you all get here so quickly," John asked once he had reached J'onn.

"I believe the short version would be to say that it is a long story," J'onn replied before turning to watch Hawkgirl smash the fourth missile in half with her mace and then destroy the lower half of the projectile a few seconds later.

Unfortunately, the other half of the missile that Hawkgirl had broken apart was still on a collision course with Gorilla City, and Wonder Woman was quick to place herself in front of it in the hopes of stopping it from reach its target, or at least slowing it down enough so that it would not bring the destruction it promised when it did hit. When the citizens of Gorilla City saw the warhead approaching, they immediately scattered to find cover, with Batman directing them to safer locations, only to wince a little when he saw both Diana and the warhead suddenly run crashing through a building on their descent towards the ground. As they drew closer and closer to the ground, Diana soon found herself praying to Hera for strength as she often did in such situations, not knowing that a certain patriotic hero had been watching on in concern since she first intercepted the missile.

When both Wonder Woman and the missile finally hit the ground, Steve felt his heart rate skyrocket in response as both skidded along the ground until they missile finally came to a stop with the Amazon princess still underneath it. "DIANA," Steve shouted in horror when he finally landed the hover bike, and he was soon racing towards where the missile had finally come to a stop so that he could attempt to dig Wonder Woman out.

Eventually, a crowd had started to form around the crash site to watch as the captain desperately tried to dig his friend out, which was eventually joined by the rest of the League who had been in the area. While each of the Leaguers were bearing looks of sadness at both the likelihood of having lost one of their own along with seeing Cap's desperate attempt to save her, the citizens of Gorilla City were looking on in both sadness and surprise. These humans, who they had thought were here to bring harm to their city had just saved their home, right to the point where one of them seemed to have given her life for them while asking for nothing in return. The question of how they could have thought that these people were spies that were sent to harm them was running through all their minds along with the feeling of despair for the heroes' apparent loss.

Eventually, Batman could no longer stand by and watch as Captain America struggled to find their friend, and slowly walked over to place a placating hand on Steve's shoulder, getting him to finally stop digging so that he could turn to look at the Dark Knight's face. When he saw that a look of sorrow was seeping through his normally stoic façade, Steve finally lowered his head in sadness and acceptance of what everyone else had already started to think, until the metal of the warhead suddenly started to groan and creak, prompting them both to move back from it. After another minute or so, the missile was finally thrown to the side, revealing Wonder Woman underneath it, tired but alive, much to everyone's shock and beaming pleasure.

After crushing the missile's control box, Diana moved to stand alongside her teammates as she addressed the citizens of Gorilla City. "The fates were kind today. Your city is safe."

The gathered crowd of apes immediately burst into cheers upon hearing this, praising the six humans who had risked their lives to save Gorilla City, giving Wonder Woman the chance to discreetly throw Steve a knowing smile. Cap was a bit unsure as to the reason for Diana's look, until she glanced down at his gloves, which were now covered in dirt from when he was digging around the missile a minute ago, hiding a good deal of the red that they were normally colored with. Steve immediately started to blush a little as he moved his hands behind his back while he tried to stutter some kind of excuse for his behavior, but that stuttering was instantly silenced while his face turned crimson when Diana planted a small kiss of thanks on his cheek. Steve turned away a little after Diana had pulled away in an attempt to hide the small smile that had crept onto his face, but his efforts only forced him to take in the knowing looks that the rest of his teammates, including Batman, were all throwing him, much to his slight irritation.

* * *

"Missile Number Four has been deactivated," Corwin exclaimed when she saw that the last missile shut off, while Gorilla City remained unscathed on the monitors.

Hearing this immediately made Grodd's blood boil as he turned to the three heroes and growled, "I'll rend you all limb from limb!"

"Gotta catch us first, Banana Breath," Spider-Man easily quipped in reply as he flipped over Grodd while the others just moved to either side to avoid the mind controlling gorilla's charge, leading Grodd to collide with the monitor of a nearby computer.

Grodd was about to charge in and throw a rage-fueled punch at Spider-Man for his banana-breath joke, when he suddenly found his helmet being pushed down over his eyes and then continuously hit like a bongo drum. "Guess who," Flash stated before he rushed away from Grodd's blind retaliation.

Grodd quickly readjusted his helmet back into its original position on his head, but it was only just in time to see Hulk charge him with a roar, sending him flying to the other side of the room. Grodd tried to hit either the speedster or the web-head when he saw that both were within his striking range, but both were able to quickly move away from him before he could, leaving him open to another hit from Hulk. "Do you intend to let the monster fight your battle for you, you irritating simpletons," Grodd demanded. "Stand still and fight me!"

"Okay, one, why would we stand still to fight you if that's just gonna result in us getting hurt? And two, we can't really fight you at all if we're going to be standing still," Spider-Man joked getting a laugh out of Flash in response.

"I'm loving this guy," Flash muttered before he turned his attention to Grodd. "You know what, Grodd; I will fight you on one condition. You ditch the mind control helmet, and I'll ditch the headband."

"Flash don't," Solavar warned, thinking Flash had lost his mind, but the speedster did not seem to acknowledge his warning.

"Come on Gorilla-My-Dreams, take off the helmet and make it a fair fight," Flash dared, and he then did something that made them all question the speedster's sanity; Flash removed his headband before Grodd had even reached to remove his helmet.

When he saw Flash toss his headband to the floor well out of arm's reach, Grodd could only smirk at the speedster's actions, feeling that Flash had just given him the golden opportunity he needed to win here and escape so that he could have his revenge another day. "You're a bigger fool than I believed the arachnid to be," Grodd chuckled to Flash.

"Hey, I resent that remark! And at least he's not naked like you," Spider-Man retorted.

The web-head's retort quickly earned him odd looks from everyone in the room until Flash finally asked, "Really? 'At least he's not naked?' Is that the best you've got?"

"What? My jokes get worse when I'm really stressed out," Spider-Man defended.

"I'm sure no one will miss your so-called wit after I've had Central City's hero destroy you for me, Spider-Man. And now, goodbye Flash," Grodd smirked as he activated his helmet. What happened next was not what Grodd had expected; instead of entering Flash's mind so he could seize control of the speedster, he was suddenly hit by a powerful shock from the device that quickly rendered him unconscious, and possibly even comatose. When he finally fell to the ground, a horrified Doctor Corwin was quick to race to his side.

"What've you done to him," Corwin demanded of the heroes.

"Hey, don't look at me! Whatever happened just now was not my fault," Spider-Man instantly protested.

"Yeah, that was me actually," Flash revealed. "When I pushed the helmet down over his eyes earlier I also crossed a few wires."

"Yep, just like Puny Banner planned," Hulk smirked with pride, knowing that Banner was smirking within their shared consciousness right now.

"How could you? You've destroyed the greatest mind on Earth," Corwin demanded in sorrow, drawing concerned looks from everyone.

"Uh lady, you do know that you're free from Grodd's mind control, right," Spider-Man asked.

Corwin just looked at the web-head in disbelief before she revealed, "He never used that on me. I loved him."

The other four occupants of the room just stared at Corwin for a few minutes before Flash finally shrugged and said, "Internet romances, huh? Go figure."

"And I thought my love life sucked," Spider-Man muttered. That was when the web-head saw something on a monitor that was sending in a feed from one of the perimeter security cameras that quickly made him concerned. "Uh guys, we've got company, and I don't think they want to share a few drinks."

Looking to the monitor allowed everyone to see Ross and his Hulkbuster Unit gathered outside the perimeter of the base, while the general in question was shouting out a demand for the Hulk to step out of the base and surrender now, much to Hulk's ire. Hulk was more than willing to go charging out of the base and smash his way through Ross and his troops, even if there was a chance that he would not likely make it, but he did not get the chance to even start his charge when Flash suddenly raced over to Solavar and said, "See if you can get the shield control device off of Grodd so we can shut down the barrier around the city. The rest of us will take care of Ross and his boys."

Solavar just nodded in response to Flash's request and immediately set to work while the two masked heroes and Hulk headed for the exit so that they could face Ross and his Hulkbuster. As they were heading out, Flash nervously looked over to the web-head and said, "Um, I know this isn't really the best time and all, but despite the circumstances, it is an honor to meet you, sir, Spider-Man, sir."

Spider-Man shook his head a little before turning a disbelieving look towards the speedster and asked, "You…consider it an honor…for you to meet me?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, you've been around for almost as long as Batman, or even longer. You're like, the first modern day superhero, Mister Spider-Man, sir," Flash insisted.

"Oh…wow, uh, thanks," Spider-Man finally nodded after a minute. "But don't call me sir, or Mister Spider-Man. It's just Spider-Man, or Spidey, and honestly, I'm the one who should be saying that he's honored to meet _you_."

"Can you do this later," Hulk interrupted, getting sheepish looks from both of the other two, which quickly vanished as they schooled their features and finally made it outside.

"Step away from the Hulk! He's a fugitive of the U.S. Armed Forces," Ross shouted to the two heroes.

Hulk was instantly gearing up to fight once again, but he soon paused in surprise when Flash stepped in front of him with his arms spread out as he said, "If you want Hulk, you're gonna have to go through me! Hulk just helped save not only Central City, but two entire cities when he could've just walked away and ignored it. He's a hero, same as me and Spidey are."

Spider-Man clearly shared that sentiment, as he was quick to move in front of Hulk and stand right next to Flash as well, but Ross did not seem to care what the heroes were saying. "Fine, if you want to defend the most dangerous man on Earth, then you'll both be arrested as well. Now stand down."

"The fastest man alive, who's also a founding member of the Justice League, and is friends with guys like Batman, Superman, and Captain America said no," Spider-Man retorted. "Besides, there could still be a few missiles in this base that haven't been launched yet. If you fire on us right now, you'll destroy everyone in Central City, making everything we just did all for nothing."

"An acceptable sacrifice for the protection of our country," Ross retorted. "Someone has to bring the Hulk down and keep America safe from any and all threats it may face in the future, and I'll do whatever it takes to do that."

"So you'd be willing to sacrifice thousands of innocent bystanders and civilians just to capture one man, whose only crime is being considered a monster due to how he can't always control his strength," Flash questioned.

"Of course! That kind of thing happens all the time, and if a few people die, then who do you think they'll blame? Us or the Hulk, who actually has a record of destroying entire cities," Ross retorted.

"Really? Hulk did that, or did you just pin the blame for a lot of your mistakes on him because it was convenient enough to keep you out of trouble?"

"That doesn't matter! I said I would do whatever it takes, and if that means a few people get hurt, then fine! Now move away from the Hulk!"

Flash just smirked broadly in response before he said, "Actually General, I think you should be the one to leave. Everything that you just said has been recorded by the cameras and microphone in my suit and is being transmitted to Central City's best reporter as we speak."

"Oh, I can see the headline now: 'Army General Attempts to Endanger Entire City for Selfish Gain.' That'll definitely earn you a few brownie points with your superiors, right," Spider-Man added while Ross just drew back in shock from Flash's declaration.

"You're bluffing," Ross tried to say.

"You sure you want to take that chance? After all, who do you think the people of this city will believe more? The guy who's saved Central City countless times, or a general who's clearly got an attitude problem," Flash retorted.

Ross just scowled in response to Flash's challenge, leveling a glare with each of the three heroes standing before him, until he finally turned to his men and said, "Stand down, troops. We're pulling out of Central City." The soldiers of the Hulkbuster Unit did not hesitate for even a second to obey the general's command, and they were all soon on their way out, but the general paused for a moment to throw one last glare at the three and promise, "This isn't over."

Flash, Hulk, and Spider-Man just returned Ross' glare with silent ones of their own, which did not waver for an instant until the Hulkbuster Unit was well out of sight and the shield surrounding Central City finally shut down.

* * *

It was not until nearly a day later when the Justice League and Spider-Man met up again with Solavar and the people of Gorilla City so that the apes could apologize to the League for their initial treatment of some of their members, and for involving them in the matter with Grodd, but the League just waved it off and called it water under the bridge, since they could fully understand the apes' caution when they had first encountered one another. During their visit, Solavar revealed that the feedback from Grodd's helmet caused all of Grodd's memories to be completely wiped out, leaving him in a near mindless state as he received the best of care from the people of Gorilla City. Seeing Grodd in the state he was now in almost made the heroes feel bad for the ape, but then again, it was a bit hard to feel bad for someone like Grodd.

After departing from Gorilla City, Flash was more than happy to give Spider-Man a fast trip back to New York, much to the web-head's immense gratitude. After Ross had been driven out of Central City, Flash had spent a bit of time really getting to know the web-head, not to the point where they revealed their secret identities to one another, but it was to the point where they could honestly say that they really enjoyed hanging out together, which inevitably led them both to promise that they would look each other up if either of them ever needed the other's help with something, or even if they were just in the neighborhood. After dropping Spider-Man off on a rooftop in New York, Flash was quick to return to Central City S.T.A.R. Labs where Green Lantern and Captain America were both waiting for him.

"You were right, Cap. Spidey is a great guy to hang out with," Flash informed the super soldier. "I think I might just drop by New York later just to see if he wants to grab a few doughnuts or something."

"Oh joy," Lantern muttered in response, having felt like he had quite enough of Spider-Man for a while, since he and the rest of the League had to endure listening to the web-head's babbling and so-called jokes. John quickly shook the thought from his head though, and then approached Flash as he said, "Listen Flash, I was a bit out of line before when we started on this whole case, but…"

"Hey forget about it. I shouldn't have snapped you the way I did," Flash interrupted. "I guess I just forgot how much of a joker I would tend to be when I'm working with the League, and even then, I guess it never really occurred to me how you guys would react when you eventually came to Central City for some reason and started working with me on a case."

"Don't let that get you down. To be honest, I think your little act does help keep us honest and hopeful at times while making sure we don't let ourselves get lost in what we're doing," John admitted. "Besides, you did outsmart a super genius and you've been keeping this city safe on your own for a long time, so I guess that should be a big indicator that you're not as dumb as you look."

Flash was about to say something in protest to John's jab until he saw the smallest ghost of a humorous smirk on the Lantern's face, showing that he was just messing around with him, to which Flash could only laugh in reply as he playfully punched his friend in the arm, drawing a smile from Captain America. That smile quickly morphed into a look of concern when they reached the central lab where Caitlin and Cisco said they would be waiting for them, and he quickly said, "Uh guys. Should we be concerned about this?"

Flash and Lantern ceased their messing about to turn and see, much to their surprise, that Hulk was actually sitting off to one side in the lab, while Cisco, once again in his full Vibe-attire, and Caitlin stood off to the other side with Joe, each nervous about what they should do. When Vibe saw that the three heroes had arrived, he quickly said, "He just came in here and said that he wanted to see you for something Flash, and he's been sitting there waiting ever since."

Flash just nodded to Cisco in reply and then slowly walked over to Hulk so he could ask, "So…what did you need to talk to me about, Hulk? I thought you would've left Central City by now."

"Hulk wanted to say…uh, thanks, Streaky," Hulk hesitantly answered, much to everyone's surprise. "Streaky help Hulk get Ross to go away, and is first person to say Hulk not a monster."

"Oh…well, you're welcome," Flash nodded with a smile. "But I thought you would've left by now? Aren't you worried that Ross is going to surround the city waiting for you to leave if you don't go right away?"

"Nah," Hulk replied. "Story that Streaky's news lady friend write likely keeping Ross busy for now." This was actually quite true, as Iris had indeed used Flash's recording of his confrontation with Ross to publish the true story about what had happened in Central City and what Ross would have done in spite of that, so there was no doubt that someone was going to be coming down on the general pretty hard for a while, meaning Hulk could go anywhere he wanted to without having to worry about Ross constantly hounding him. "And there is one other reason, too," Hulk admitted.

"And what's that," Green Lantern asked, silently praying that the other reason was that Hulk wanted to hit him again.

The answer quickly came when a loud grumbling sound seemed to echo throughout all of S.T.A.R. Labs, followed by a small moan from Hulk as he revealed, "Hulk really hungry."

"Yep, you definitely made friends with the right guy," Vibe stated as he pointed to Flash.

Flash and Hulk just looked at each other for a minute before the speedster finally grinned and asked, "Do you like Keystone City pizza?"

"Who doesn't," Hulk asked in excitement.

"Give me a few minutes to get a couple dozen pizzas and a few for everyone else," Flash said as he turned to leave.

"Okay, but what Streaky going to eat," Hulk asked, making Flash pause in his departure for a minute.

Flash just stared in mild surprise for a minute until he finally corrected himself and said, "Make that three dozen pizzas and a few for everyone else."

A minute later, Flash was gone, leaving the rest of the group just laugh at the two hungry heroes, each just taking some enjoyment out of the fact that Flash and Hulk were clearly going to be bonding over a shared, massive appetite.

* * *

 ** _AN: Well, that's everything. Quite a few twists and turns this time around in comparison to how the original episode was, huh? Show of hands, who liked seeing Hulk help out this time along with some of the nicknames he gave to the Leaguers he met? And aside from that, who also caught those little tid-bits and references to some elements from The Flash?_**

 ** _Moving on from that stuff, I know that originally Batman was the one who was trying to dig Diana out from under the missile, but in case you guys haven't noticed, Bats isn't Wonder Woman's love interest in this story. That role has been taken over by Cap. Also, don't start getting on my case about Cap using the hover bike to help stop the missile or anything like that, because no one ever really specified how fast those things are, but given that they were able to keep up with J'onn, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Woman pretty easily during their attempted escape from Gorilla City, I'd think that would make them pretty fast._**

 ** _Oh, and about the sudden inclusion of Spider-Man, that was actually something that was a bit last minute...okay not really. See that's actually going to be something that comes into play later on in this story series. If you know the DCAU, then I'm sure you guess which little Justice League adventure that it comes into play in. The only hint you'll be getting in regards to this is that it takes place during Justice League Unlimited, so yeah, we won't be seeing that for a while._**

 ** _Well, that just about covers everything that I wanted to...oh, wait, there is one other thing I wanted to mention._**

 ** _You all know what I said in the beginning author's note about a chapter in this story crossing this story over with my Code Avengers story series? Well you can expect that to take place very soon, so try to stay as patient as possible for that. If you haven't read any of the Code Avengers stories yet, then don't stress it too much. I'm going to do my best to write it so that it won't matter all that much unless you want an idea for where in the series it takes place. But please, feel free to check it out if you really want a good idea of the dynamics that go on in that story, or even if you just want an early sneak peek at that upcoming chapter for this story._**

 ** _Now, that settles everything I wanted to talk about, so Onto the Preview everybody!..._**

 ** _The Injustice Gang has reunited under new leadership, which is soon revealed to be an Amazon from Diana's home, and not long after, Superman and various other men in Gotham suddenly find themselves falling victim to an unknown virus because of this Amazon. Can Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl stop the rouge Amazon and help the brave women of Gotham City keep the city from falling apart, or will they need a couple of extra hands to avert this crisis? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 10: Femme Fatal** ** _._**

 ** _Yeah, expect a couple more MARVEL special guests next chapter. I really seem to be doing a lot of those with this story despite how it's supposed to be mostly a Captain America and Justice League crossover, huh? Well don't worry too much. I'm sure I've made it clear that not every chapter has a special guest Marvel hero by now, haven't I? Besides, with so many great Marvel heroes, it's kinda hard not to do that. Anyways..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	10. Femme Fatale

**_AN: Hey everybody, I'm back! Sorry for the long wait, but I was on vacation down at Disney World for a while a couple months back, and after I got back I was struck by inspiration that got me really going in the way of starting up my newest Kingdom Hearts story, Kingdom Hearts: Dual Keys, now posted on my profile for your viewing pleasure, and after that, I just had a ton of ideas for the final story in the Gundam SEED Prime Trilogy, which is now completed for those of you who have been following that story and who have not already seen, but rest assured I intend to give each of my other stories at least one, long-awaited update, and it starts here with the newest chapter of this story._**

 ** _Joker: Well it's about time. I know I pulled a joke or two here about this story being put on hiatus or something in earlier chapters, but I didn't mean for you to go and actually do it like that, intentionally or otherwise._**

 ** _Deadpool: I know right? This guy can be just so insensitive. It's like he doesn't like us superheroes as much he claims to, and I've been waiting forever for him to update either Avengers Academy or Code Avengers: Cosmic._**

 ** _AN: Oh my god, the psychotic duo is back. Security!_**

 ** _[Optimus Prime, the Batmobile, the Hulk Buster, and the 00 Gundam all swoop in and start blasting Joker and Deadpool]_**

 ** _Joker: [looks down to see he's okay] Ha! You missed us!_**

 ** _Deadpool: Uh Joker. Last time this happened to me, it was not a good thi-[suddenly gets blasted by something]_**

 ** _Joker: Wade? Did you say some- [gets slashed a minute later]_**

 ** _Joker & Deadpool: [look to see Lightning Farron standing before them threateningly] Uh-oh._**

 ** _Lightning: Start running. Now._**

 ** _Joker & Deadpool: [run away like the maniacs they are with Lightning hot on their tails]_**

 ** _AN: Wow that woman is awesome. And speaking of awesome women, that's actually a pretty big focus for this chapter, in case you didn't already know, so let's get on with the story and see that girl power in action!_**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Femme Fatal**

You would think that after all these years, Gotham's criminals would have learned by now why you should not be conducting any form of illegal business, especially at night, whether it is just a simple mugging, or some major break-in that is part of a much more elaborate plan. The reasons as to why doing so would be a bad idea should be quite obvious, since Gotham is Batman's city, and it is also defended by Batgirl, Robin, and occasionally Nightwing, but still, even after all that Gotham's caped crusaders have done to keep the city safe from the criminal scum, there was always still someone who was either brave, foolish, or even crazy enough to think that they could try and get away with it. Tonight was one such night in which someone was one of those things, and their target was Gotham Biotech.

Of course, saying that it was some _one_ would probably be inaccurate, seeing as it was certainly more than just one person. In point of fact, it was actually the Injustice Gang, assembled together once again, only this time under new leadership and with a few other changes in their line-up. Aside from Luthor and Ultra Humanite, Cheetah and Baron Strucker were both no longer part of the team, while Grundy, Copperhead, the Shade, and Star Sapphire being the only ones who still remained on the team. In place of the other four where four women, the first of which being a woman dressed in a similar outfit to Strucker's who had green hair that covered one side of her face. The second woman had shoulder-length black hair, a blue and black suit that covered her entire body save for her head, and a golden mask. The third was an Asian woman decked out in a red outfit with a katana holstered on her back. Finally, the fourth new member of the group, and the gang's new leader was a blonde woman in a white and gold outfit that seemed to be of Greek design. Only the first three of these four women were really known to the world at large, and they were known mostly as Madame Viper, alternatively known as Madame Hydra, Madame Masque, and Tsukuri.

Another notable difference between this new version of the Injustice Gang in comparison to when they were under Luthor's leadership was that they were much more organized than before, seeing as they were able to enter and infiltrate the facility with a very well-practiced ease, but the most notable difference of all was that only the mysterious blonde who was leading them seemed to really know what the final objective of their group. Not that most of the criminals really cared about what her plans were all that much, all that mattered to them was they would get paid. Of course, there was also the fact that they would also not go back to jail or get beaten up by any of the Bat-Clan, but that really went without saying.

Unfortunately, it did not seem likely that they would avoid a confrontation with Batman, because almost a second after they had left the vault that they had targeted, the Dark Knight had descended upon them, and easily took out both Copperhead and Shade. Star Sapphire was quick to respond to this, and Batman was soon forced to take cover lest he be struck by one of her energy blasts. Thankfully, he had not come alone tonight, if the second, bat-like shadow was any indication. After swiftly descending down from the ceiling, the lone female member of the Bat-Clan, Batgirl was able to quickly use one of the mirrors in the hallway that were used for security purposes to deflect one of the rouge Star Sapphire's blasts back at her, knocking her out in an instant, and giving Batman the chance to charge in again in order to intercept Madame Masque before she had the change to attack his red haired partner.

"You're late," was the only thing that Batman said to his young friend before he pushed Madame Masque back.

"Sorry, but not all of us have a rocket powered car, and besides, traffic was bad," Batgirl shrugged in reply, her smirk a dead giveaway to the fact that she was joking, assuming her tone was not already indication enough. The redhead was soon forced to duck though, as Grundy was quick to try and attack her, his large fists swinging at the smaller, much more agile crime fighter, until Batgirl was eventually forced to use the mirror she was still holding to intercept his fist, leading it to be completely smashed apart as a result. "Oh, too bad for you Solemn. That's seven years of bad luck that you've just bought yourself, along with the years you'll be spending in prison."

Grundy just growled in anger at Batgirl before attempting to charge her, just as the redhead had anticipated he would. After withdrawing a high-voltage batarang from her utility belt, a simple flick of the wrist was all Batgirl needed to send the projectile towards Grundy, leading the living zombie to end up zapped into unconsciousness when he tried to catch it. A sudden battle cry alerted Batgirl to an incoming attack, but she was not able to move fast enough in order to block Tsukuri before she had landed a solid kick onto the side of her head, which resulted in her colliding with the wall behind her. Before Batgirl could stand up though, she suddenly found a green whip being wrapped tightly around her neck, courtesy of Madame Viper, who intended to make sure that the younger bat did not get away before Tsukuri struck her down with her sword.

Seeing his protégé in trouble, Batman knew he had to react fast, but there was still the matter of Madame Masque to deal with. Fortunately, she was not the first female criminal that Batman had dealt with, and he had also done his research on this particular masked woman. "You really should've stayed in Malibu, Masque. Finally get tired of being outwitted by someone who's main strategy is to go in with guns blazing, or did Iron Man find a better dance partner than you?"

"I'll make you eat those words, bastard," Masque snarled as she charged, playing right into Batman's hands. Batman easily caught Madame Masque's fist when she attempted to strike him, and promptly threw her over his shoulder so that she would be sent flying into Tsukuri before she could take another step closer to Batgirl. Having not expected this sudden change, Viper made the mistake of moving her gaze away from her current captive, allowing Batgirl to use Viper's own whip to pull her into an elbow jab.

From that point on, Batman and Batgirl were focusing all of their attention on Tsukuri and Viper, respectively, matching them each move for move, and blow for blow as they fought. There was certainly no denying that all four combatants were very skilled, and that meant that the only way one side would win would be if one of them slipped up in even the slightest way. In the end, it turned out that Tsukuri was the one who had slipped up, as just when it seemed that she had Batman dead to rights, she had paused for the slightest second, and that allowed Batman to redirect her killing blow from harming him, and send her on a collision course with Madame Viper just as Batgirl had flipped aside to avoid the green haired woman's whip, knocking both of them out in an instant. All that was left for the two to deal with at that point was the blonde woman in white and gold, and it did not look like she was interested in fighting, given how she was so quick to try and make a run for it.

"Not so fast," Batman stated as he tossed a batline at the fleeing blonde, pulling her in the moment that she was tied up in the cable. "Who are you?"

"I answer to no man. Not even you," the blonde snarled in response, and then she broke free of the line that had tied her up just by flexing her arms, much to Batman and Batgirl's slight surprise, seeing as the cable that their lines were made of were supposed to be nearly impossible to break without having incredible strength like that of Superman or Wonder Woman's. Batman's shock at the woman's display of strength allowed the blonde the chance to toss him into the wall like he were nothing more than a rag doll, and it did not seem she was going to be satisfied with just that, because she was soon lifting him up over her head to throw once more.

"Well then how about a girl," Batgirl then quipped in response to what the blonde had said earlier, having snapped out of her daze the moment that her mentor had been attacked the first time, drawing the blonde's attention to her. Sadly, her attention was not diverted to Batgirl quickly enough for her to be able to avoid the jump kick the redhead had launched at her, and the minute that Batgirl had struck, the blonde ended up dropping Batman like a sack of potatoes. The blonde just sneered in response to this before attempting to attack Batgirl in retaliation, but the redhead was ready for the blonde this time, and managed to block the punch that the blonde threw at her before it had connected. The two continued to trade blows for a few more minutes, with neither of them gaining much ground, until finally, they were both locked at a standstill.

What came as a surprise to Batgirl was that the blonde had ended up smirking at her. "You show a rather impressive amount of skill, sister. You would be much better off helping me in my cause than you would be from allying with that pathetic waste of life," the blonde stated.

"Thanks, but I'm good. Besides, I've got a bit of a problem hanging with girls that get off on breaking into biolabs and stealing things," Batgirl quipped in reply before she managed to kick the blonde away.

"Suit yourself," the blonde shrugged, and she then threw some sort of daggers at Batgirl.

The redheaded hero easily leaned out of the way before the knives could hit, but it was only after she had done so that she realized that she had not been the target. Instead, it was the machinery that Batman was currently lying up against that had been hit, and from the way that it had started sparking, it was obvious that it was likely about to blow up along with the Dark Knight if she did not do something. "Your choice, sister. Save him or stop me. Either way, you cannot hope to win today."

Batgirl just glared at the blonde before she ran to pull Batman to safety. When the machinery finally exploded, the blonde just stared at where the two bats had been until the smoke finally cleared up just enough for her to see that there was absolutely no sign of either of them. She did not think much of the matter though, and she then just walked away to gather up the rest of her fellow criminals before they made their exit. None of them ever noticed that Batgirl had retreated up onto the building's rooftop with an injured Batman slung over her shoulder, and the redhead was more than ready to go after them, until Batman let out a soft groan of pain.

"Easy Batman. You took a pretty nasty hit, but I don't think it's too serious. Still, you might want to head back to the cave and have Alfred check to be sure. I'll go after those guys and…" Batgirl had been saying, until her mentor interrupted.

"No. The Injustice Gang is too much for you to handle on your own," Batman protested.

"Excuse me? If that's the case, then they would've been too much for you to handle alone too. We had it all under control, and the only thing that threw us off was that blonde woman," Batgirl immediately argued.

"Maybe, but you also didn't keep your eyes on all of your surroundings, and that led you to get caught by Viper and Tsukuri," Batman reminded her. "More importantly, we don't know anything about what they're really planning, and I'm sure that mystery woman's identity may be the key to discovering what that is."

"Fine, then we can just call Alfred and ask him to run a search for anyone matching her description," Batgirl conceded, having managed to see Batman's point.

"That won't be necessary," Batman disputed, and he then raised up his hand to show Batgirl what he had in it. The item in question was a golden necklace that Batgirl remembered seeing on the mystery blonde during the fight, at least up until she had been forced to fight her one-on-one, which could only have meant that Batman had taken it without their enemy noticing. What really caught her attention though was the design of this necklace, because as far as she could remember, she had only seen two other people wearing something of similar design before, and she knew that her mentor was well acquainted with at least one if not both of them. "I just need to speak with a certain pair of princesses."

* * *

Steve Rogers had been in various situations throughout his life, both before and during the war, and in his time since waking up again to the modern world, but right now, he could honestly say that he had most likely never found himself in a more embarrassing situation than the one he was in right at that moment. "You know, I'm pretty sure that your sister would have been a better option as a shopping companion than I am," Steve told the raven haired beauty of an Amazon that was next to him at the moment while trying to ignore the various people staring at them.

"Donna has had even less experience in man's world than I have had, and you honestly think that she would be a better person to help me understand more about it than you," Diana asked the super soldier.

"Considering that I'm about seventy years out of style in some cases," Steve reminded her, trailing off at the end when he did.

"That is still better than either myself or Donna," Diana argued. She then had to hide a small blush that was starting to form as she added, "Besides…I happen to enjoy your company."

Steve was soon forcing down a blush of his own before he finally said, "Well…I appreciate that, but I still can't help but wonder one thing: Why exactly are we doing this while in uniform?"

Indeed, one of the main reasons as to why a lot of people were staring at them was because they had come fully decked out in their Wonder Woman and Captain America attire, and it was not every day that someone saw so much as one superhero browsing around any kind of store to do so much as window shopping, let alone two of them, and the fact that they were both in a store that had more of a focus on feminine products, one could understand why even Captain America would feel a little embarrassed. Diana just looked at him in blank confusion as she asked, "Why should we try to hide who we are as though we are ashamed of it? We are warriors of truth and justice."

"Yes, but we would be drawing less attention to ourselves if we had come here in civilian attire," Steve pointed out, casually waving a hand at some of the people were either openly staring or trying to act like they were not. "Your outfit may be something that would be considered the norm back on your island, but around here…well, it's not really that…typical when we're not working or when it's not a certain occasion."

Diana glanced around in the directions that Steve had indicated before she finally stated, "I think I see your point." She then led the two of them into the store's perfume section, glancing around as a few different women were trying out various different varieties of lipstick and other similar products, and bringing out a new subject of confusion for them while Steve just bowed his head slightly in embarrassment. "Why would anyone want to cover up their natural beauty?"

"Uh…it's not always necessarily covering it up. Some people use that stuff to enhance their natural appearances," Steve tried to explain, clearly not comfortable discussing the matter. "Usually for things such as…special interviews or some other occasion."

"And does that help them in some sort of task," Diana asked.

Somehow, the super soldier managed to suppress a groan of discomfort, feeling more than ever that he was probably not the best person to explain such things to the rather naïve Amazon and then replied, "You know, maybe you should direct these questions to Pepper the next time you see her. I think she would be better at explaining this than me."

Diana just stared at Steve for a minute before she nodded in acceptance of this and then moved on, not noticing a store clerk holding out a perfume bottle in her direction until said clerk had sprayed her with a light sample. Acting on instinct, Diana immediately latched on to the offending arm, and pulled the clerk in, startling the poor woman when she did. Steve was quick to jump in though, and upon getting Diana to calm down, he turned to the clerk and apologized saying, "Sorry about that. She's a bit allergic to most perfumes and can be very defensive when something comes at her from out of nowhere."

"It's alright sir," the clerk replied. "I probably should've spoken up before trying to give your girlfriend a sample like that."

That caused both heroes to start a little before Steve immediately said, "Uh we're not…together or anything. I mean, we are here together, but we're not dating or anything like that. We're…we're just good friends."

"Yes. Just good friends," Diana quickly added, though a part of her did feel a little disappointed to hear those words for some reason.

Thankfully they were both saved from answering any other uncomfortable questions when their comm. links suddenly beeped, indicating that they were getting a call. _"Batman to Wonder Woman. We need to talk. Head for Gotham as soon as you can, and bring your sister along and Cap if he's with you."_

The two just exchanged a quick look and a nod before they immediately raced out of the store so that they could pick up Donna and head for Gotham, both knowing that if the Dark Knight was calling anyone in the League over to his city, it probably meant something really serious was going on. Even so, it did not stop Steve from feeling very grateful for the fact that he was finally able to get out of this particular store for the moment.

* * *

After collecting Donna from the embassy that she and Diana shared as their new home, the two Leaguers had soon arrived in Gotham and met up with both Batman and Batgirl on one of the very many rooftops in the dark, dreary city. Steve was quick to notice that Batman was favoring one side over the other, indicating that he had been hurt in a recent fight, but the Dark Knight was soon going into detail on why he had called them all there before Cap could ask him about it. Hearing that he and Batgirl had encountered the new Injustice Gang was a bit surprising to the three heroes who had just arrived, but what the two Gothamites revealed about their supposed leader was what proved to be the most shocking part of the news. "An Amazon? That's ridiculous," Diana protested, getting a silent nod of agreement from her sister to further enforce the idea.

"I don't think so. I managed to take this off her," Batman stated as he handed Donna the necklace he had swiped from the blonde woman, letting both her and her older sister look it over. "It's an Amazon design, isn't it?"

No one needed to know that Batman was only asking that question as a formality, but Donna still gave an answer all the same. "Yes, it is indeed Amazonian in design, and it appears to be from Themyscira, but it could still be a very convincing forgery. It wouldn't be the first time someone had attempted to replicate something from our culture, or at least the culture that we have taken as our own."

"Besides, Amazons don't steal. It's against our code, and we never leave the island," Diana continued to argue, clearly not seeing the flaw in her last statement until someone had pointed it out.

"Said the first of the two Amazons who did leave said island," Batgirl pointed out, earning her a small look from the older Amazon.

Before an argument could break out, Cap cut in and said, "We should at least consider it, Diana. If word gets out that someone from your home is here and committing crimes, it could be seen in a very bad light by a lot of people."

Diana was able to see the logic in Steve's words, and simply sighed before she looked to her sister and said, "Donna, can you return home and see if either mother or any of our sisters can shed some light on this?"

"Sure thing, Big Sister," Donna nodded.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather she not go alone," Batman interjected.

"No. Men are forbidden from setting foot on Themyscira," Donna protested.

"We know," Captain America reminded the younger brunette. "But I don't remember anyone saying anything about one of us or even any man going with you."

Diana immediately caught on to what Steve meant by that, and nodded in approval of this, and if the small, hidden smirk he had on his face was any indication, Batman had been thinking the same thing as the super soldier. Donna on the other hand was still a bit lost by what they meant by that, but her sister assured her that it would become clear in a few minutes, so she elected to just trust them in what they were thinking.

* * *

 _Okay, this was a good idea_ , Donna thought to herself as she and Hawkgirl flew down to the shores of Themyscira. Sure they had to be accompanied by Batman, who would be flying just outside the island's borders in his Batwing, but as long as it was only the two of them, she did not think there would be any problems. After a few more minutes of flying, the two touched down on the islands shores, and Hawkgirl took a moment to let Batman know that they had arrived before moving to follow her teammate's little sister. Of course, this led the two into what Donna felt was an awkward silence, having never spent any time with any of Diana's fellow Leaguers on her own that often aside from Captain America, and she was really hoping to have a little conversation with the winged woman next to her.

"So…Diana tells me that you're a very skilled and powerful warrior. One that could rival an Amazon," Donna remarked in an attempt to start a conversation.

"I guess," Hawkgirl shrugged. "Is that surprising or something?"

"Uh not really. I just…I mean…well, I never really thought there would be someone in man's world that was…" Donna stuttered, hoping that she was not coming off as offensive in any way.

Shayera just smiled in amusement at the Amazon's moment of fluster before she said, "Calm down, kid. I get what you mean, but you'd surprised by how much things have changed since you and the rest of the Amazons cut themselves off from the rest of the world."

"I actually already have been on a few occasions to be honest," Donna admitted with a shrug. The two trudged on a little longer in silence again before Donna decided to ask, "So do you know if there is any development in the relationship between my sister and Captain America?"

Shayera could only smirk in response, knowing what the younger Amazon was doing, but that smirk was quickly replaced with a look of concerned caution when several different Amazon warriors suddenly jumped out of nowhere to surround them, clearly indicating that they were likely going to attack them at any moment. Thankfully, Donna managed to prevent any fights from breaking out when she stepped forward with her hands raised in the universal gesture to wait. "Hold, my sisters! We are not here to fight with you," the young girl declared in a regal, commanding voice that Hawkgirl had not been expecting from her.

Seeing Donna immediately prompted the other Amazons to stand down while their leader, a redheaded Amazon with a very large sword stepped forward to address her. "Princess Donna, we were not expecting you for another few weeks," the Amazon said.

"Nor I any of you, Artemis, but something has happened in man's world, and there is suspicion that one of our sisters may be involved. I must speak with my mother at once," Donna replied.

Artemis and the others surrounding the two were shocked to hear what Donna said, but all the same, the redhead nodded in reply and immediately waved for the two to follow her and her soldiers. With nothing more to say or do, everyone just started making their way to the palace so that the island's visitors could have an audience with Themyscira's queen.

* * *

While Batman was waiting outside the borders of Themyscira for Hawkgirl and Wonder Girl, the rest of the league took to the streets and skies of Gotham in order to make sure that the new Injustice Gang did not cause any more trouble in the Dark Knight's city, with Batgirl helping to coordinate their efforts from the Batcave while trying to get a better idea of what the supervillains' next target would be. Normally Batman would not have liked the idea of letting other heroes outside of his circle of allies defend his city in his absence, but given the circumstances, he was able to make an exception this time, at least so long as it was only the League and no one else. Captain America did not need the side glance that Batman threw at him to know that the Dark Knight was silently telling them all to not call in Spider-Man unless it was absolutely necessary, but then again, none of them were really thinking about calling in any other heroes they knew since they were sure that they could handle the new gang no matter what changes they had gone through.

As they were patrolling the streets from the rooftops, Cap had noticed that Diana was a little distracted, and he had a very good guess as to why. Given what Diana had told them about her fellow Amazons, it was likely hard to believe that one of them could have any part of this whole thing, let alone be leading it. Donna was probably in the same boat as her older sister, but whereas Diana tended to wear her heart on her sleeve, Donna seemed to keep it all inside for the moment. At least, that was what it seemed like to Steve, but he was probably not the best person to judge on that since the younger Amazon had taken off for Themyscira with Hawkgirl just after they had spoken with Batman. Still, he did wish there was something he could do to ease whatever concerns that Wonder Woman had at the moment.

As it turned out, he did not really need to think of anything, as Batgirl was soon contacting them with an update from the Bat-Computer's police scanner. _"Guys, GCPD just got an alert from Gotham Gem Depository, and security footage has confirmed that the suspects are the Injustice Gang,"_ the redhead informed the Leaguers. _"There's one other thing you should know though: the security footage showed our suspected, blonde Amazon sending a message to the League daring you all to try and stop them."_

"Which likely means that we'll be walking into a trap if we go there," Captain America finished after landing on the next roof over, while Diana came to a stop in midair.

 _"Still, we can't just let them slide. This is the first lead we've had in tracking them down all night,"_ Superman reasoned over the comm. _"I'm close to the Gem Depository right now and can be there in a few moments."_

"Roger that. Wonder Woman and I are just a few blocks away as well, so we can set up something of a perimeter in case any of them get past you," Cap suggested.

 _"See you there,"_ Superman said before ending the call, and the two star-spangled heroes just nodded to each other before heading to their destination as fast as they both could.

When the two had arrived, they saw that the police had already set up a perimeter at the entrance, and a large hole in the wall of the building itself. Whether it was where Superman had entered the building or where the Injustice Gang had made their exit, they could not say for certain, but a moment later, they both saw the blonde woman that the two bats of Gotham had told them about come flying out of the hole, and then jump over the heads of the officers to land on a police cruiser to spring board off of into the alley below them. Cap just had enough time to note that the roof of the cruiser had a very large dent in it from the woman's feet before he also spotted a green haired woman following just behind her blonde partner, using a long whip to swing over the peace keepers blocking her path in order to catch up. Seeing the fleeing criminals were going to run right into their path if they acted now, Wonder Woman and Captain America immediately jumped down from the rooftop to impede their paths, each determined to make sure neither of the criminals got away.

"That's far enough, ladies," Captain America warned once the two villains had skidded to a halt, only to end up lightly gasping in shock along with Diana and the two criminals when he got a good look at who was standing before them. "Madame Hydra?!"

"Aresia," Wonder Woman gasped in shock, indentifying the blonde of the two.

"Diana," the blonde growled before she grabbed the princess and tossed her into a wall, while the green haired woman cracked her whip at Cap, forcing him to jump back a little in order to avoid being hurt by it.

"Captain America. I've been waiting for this," Madame Hydra snarled, readying a pistol she had holstered on her belt to fire at him. "And by the way, I prefer Madame Viper, seeing as HYDRA has long since been destroyed because of you."

Cap silenced any retort he had to that so that he could take a moment to study the green haired woman in front of him while blocking the rain of laser blasts that were suddenly being thrown at him with his shield. After a few minutes though, he came to a quick realization. "You're not the same woman I fought back in the Forties. If I had to guess, I'd say you're probably a descendant."

"So, the soldier does have a brain," Viper confirmed with a sneer as she charged him.

Now normally, Captain America would not hit a woman, but given this particular woman's present company and the fact that she seemed to be carrying on her family legacy, he found no reason to exercise any form of chivalry in that regard at the moment. While Cap was distracted, Aerisa grabbed a silver grenade from her belt, which she immediately threw towards the captain, but thankfully, Cap saw this coming, and quickly managed to bat the explosive away from him with his shield before it could go off. Seeing that the super soldier had deflected her attack irked Aresia a little, but before she could think about it too much, she found herself having to stave off an attack from Diana. The fight did not last much longer after that, as the two criminal women had soon cornered the heroes, and when Aerisa looked over their heads towards the Gem Depository, she immediately began smirking at what she saw, much to the heroes' confusion.

"Well, I'm sure that my friend and I would both love to stay and chat, but you might want to look after your friend," the blonde commented as she waved a hand towards the building that they had both just come out of.

When the heroes turned their attention in said direction, both of their eyes quickly widened at the sight of Superman stumbling out of the building before he fell from the hole that the two had escaped through and collapsed in front of the main entrance, no doubt cratering the ground a little when he did. "Superman," Wonder Woman gasped in concern.

"I'd tell you that the option of chasing after us or helping your friend was your choice, Captain, but I think we both know which you will choose," Viper smirked as she and Aerisa both began to disappear into the shadows.

As much as he hated to admit it, Steve knew that Viper was right, because he had quickly followed after Wonder Woman so that they could check on their friend and teammate. When they reached the Man of Steel, they could tell just from looking at his face that there was definitely something wrong with him, because it was riddled with faintly visible veins while his eyes had dark rings around them, and after turning him over a little, they could also hear him groaning like he had suddenly come down with some sort of sickness. Since they both knew that Superman did not normally get sick from just any Earth disease, it only made sense that Aresia and Viper were somehow behind this, and thankfully, it did not seem like they would be trying to figure out what it was on their own, given they soon heard a familiar whooshing sound heading in their direction.

"Hey, what's wrong with the big guy," Flash said as he skidded to a halt in front of the two, with Green Lantern landing next to him a second later.

"We're not sure," Diana admitted. "We found him like this after meeting Aresia and a woman with green hair that Cap had called Madame Hydra."

"Okay, I know that Madame Hydra was supposed to be some major leader in HYDRA back in the Forties, but who's the other person," Flash asked.

"Aresia is one of my Amazon sisters," Diana explained.

"I thought they never let them off the island, with you and your sister being the only exceptions," Flash commented.

"On another note, how could you have run into Madame Hydra," Lantern asked.

"It wasn't actually her," Cap revealed. "But I'm pretty sure that the woman is a descendant of hers, seeing as there was quite a resemblance between them. She said that she called herself Madame Viper."

"Of the Serpent Society," Green Lantern commented. "I thought she had died after an encounter with Batman during the first year that he was around."

"Clearly that news was greatly exaggerated," Cap pointed out.

"Well where are they now," Lantern asked.

"They both got away," Diana revealed as she lifted Superman up into her arms. "You three try to track her down while I take Superman back to the Watchtower."

"Roger that," Cap nodded, and with that, Diana quickly took to the skies so that she could carry out her task, leaving her three teammates to pick up some kind of trail.

"So the new Injustice Gang really is being led by an Amazon, huh? Who'd have thought," Flash commented.

"I'll admit, I wasn't really expecting it either, but for right now, we should try to look for some kind of clues that could give us a trail to follow," Lantern suggested.

"Aresia did leave a rather large dent in a police cruiser, so that might have left an impression of her shoes that we could use to track her," Cap told the two.

"Good call, but we shouldn't just leave it at that. We'll need to look over the whole area for anything that would be out of place in one way or another," Flash offered. Being a CSI when he was not off saving Central City or the rest of the world as a superhero had quite a few advantages at times like these, and it helped that he could case an entire crime scene much faster as the Flash than he could as Barry Allen.

"I think this would qualify as something that could help a bit more than just a footprint, or any of your other typical clues that are found by CSIs," Green Lantern stated from where he was kneeled down by the crater that Superman had left, his ring shinning on one specific point on the ground. Flash and Cap were both soon standing next to John as the Lantern of the trio rubbed his fingers through what looked to be an orange-colored sample of dust on the ground, only to find that it was red in color when not under the light of his ring.

"Any idea on what that is," Cap asked, directing the question more towards Barry since he knew about the speedster's secret identity.

"Not right now," John shrugged.

"Me neither," Flash admitted. "Maybe Batgirl might have some answers though if we run a sample of this through that fancy computer of Batman's."

 _"Bring a sample of it to a rooftop at the coordinates I'm sending you, and you can consider it done,"_ the redhead's voice announced over their comm. links.

"Batgirl, were you listening in on us the whole time," Cap asked.

 _"Yeah, kind of. Sorry about that, but I just didn't like having to sit back on the sidelines and watch while you guys were doing all the work."_

All three heroes nodded in consent of that, and after carefully sliding a sample of the substance into a bag that Cap had in his belt, the super soldier was soon racing off to the coordinates that Batgirl had provided as a rendezvous point. Once the super soldier was out of sight, Flash ended up asking the big question. "Just what was this Aresia person doing all this for?"

* * *

Flash's question was actually something that was currently on the minds of both Hippolyta and Donna, as the minute that Wonder Girl and Hawkgirl showed the queen of Themyscira the necklace that Batman had taken off the blonde Amazon, the queen had instantly recognized and identified it for them before ordering her horse to be made ready so that she could show the two visitors where Aresia was supposed to be at that very moment. Minutes later, the three found themselves at the base of a large tower that was standing proudly atop a cliff that overlooked the ocean around Themyscira. "Aresia is supposed to be here in solitary meditation, but if what you have discovered is true, Donna," Hippolyta began to explain.

"Believe me, Mother, I'm hoping that it isn't," Donna told the queen before all three entered the tower. After climbing several flights of stairs, the three found themselves in the only room in the tower, only to discover that it was completely empty, and every surface seemed to have a rather apparent layer of dust on it.

"Looks like she got tired of contemplating her naval," Hawkgirl quipped as she watched Hippolyta lit a few candles to give the room a bit more light. "Nobody's been here in weeks."

"I feared as much," Hippolyta sighed in despair after lighting the last candle and blowing out the one she had used to light the others.

"So why was she in here? Did she do something wrong," the winged Leaguer asked.

"No, it was the final step of her rebirth, wasn't it Mother," Donna replied.

"You are correct, my child," Hippolyta nodded. "Aresia was not born an Amazon. She comes from man's world. When she was but a child, her homeland became a battlefield for a bloody and senseless war. The victors were cruel and denied even the basic humanity of their defeated foes. Soon neighbors, friends, and schoolmates were all gone, and Aresia's family had no choice but to flee. They eventually made their way to a refugee ship, but even here fate was not kind. Pirates raided the ship and stole their few meager possessions before destroying the ship. Aresia survived, clinging to a piece of floating wreckage, and miraculously, she washed ashore here on Themyscira. I found her and nursed her back to health, then we Amazons adopted her, trained her, and magically endowed her with Amazon strength."

"I remember watching her train with Diana from time to time, and she always seemed to be…I don't know, rather angry beneath what happiness she held for being able to live with us," Donna recollected.

"Yes, you were not alone in that regard, Donna, and because of that, I've often wondered if we did the right thing. Still, how could we refuse," Hippolyta wondered.

"You couldn't," Hawkgirl replied, honestly finding herself with a newfound respect for Diana's mother. In all honesty, she was not really all that fond of meeting Hippolyta in person for the first time after hearing about Diana's banishment, but after what she had seen and heard here today, she felt any sour feelings towards the Amazon queen disappearing.

"And now she's deserted us," Hippolyta sighed in sadness.

Donna never did like seeing her mother upset like this for one reason or another, even when she was little, and whenever such moments came up, Donna had always tried to find some way to cheer her mother up. This time was no different, as the young girl was soon at Hippolyta's side with a comforting hug as she said, "Maybe there's some sort of explanation for all of this. Aresia may have a good reason for leaving, and even if she doesn't, there's always the chance that we can convince her that she's wrong."

"I hope you're right, Donna," Hippolyta prayed, giving her a daughter a thankful smile for what she was trying to do.

Hawkgirl was a bit touched by the family moment that was unfolding before her, but right at that moment, she was more focused on finding some sort of clues as to what the rogue Amazon was up to or where she had gone, and her eyes were instantly surveying the room around her like the bird she was named after. When her eyes fell upon a nearby chest, she immediately started walking over to it as she said, "Maybe we'll find some answers in here."

Hawkgirl struggled for a minute to lift the lid, but it quickly became much easier when Donna lent her a hand in opening, holding it open for the older woman so that she could get a good look inside. Shayera just gave a quick smile of thanks to Wonder Girl before rummaging through the items that were inside, not really liking what she was seeing so far. "What is it," Hippolyta asked when she noticed the winged woman's concern.

"Books…maps…city guides," Hawkgirl listed as she picked out one particular book from the bunch.

"These things have long been forbidden here," Donna stated.

"Why," Shayera asked.

"We believe contact with the outside world through such things could corrupt us," Hippolyta stated as simply as possible.

Looking at the title of the book in her hands, Hawkgirl could only say, "I think I can see why you would believe that."

Donna's curiosity quickly got the better of her, and she was soon leaning in closer to see what the title of the book Shayera had was in an attempt to understand why Hawkgirl would say such a thing. When she did, she quickly began to wish she did not see, because the book was titled _History of Germ Warfare_. "We should let Diana and the others know about what we've learned here as quickly as possible," Donna told Hawkgirl.

"I'm with you on that, kid," Hawkgirl agreed, and the two were both soon flying out the nearby window so that they could rendezvous with Batman and return to the mainland, leaving Hippolyta to look down in despair at what Aresia seemed to be doing while thinking about what she could do to help her daughters stop the rogue Amazon.

* * *

After picking up Hawkgirl and Wonder Girl, and subsequently hearing about what they had discovered, a small part of Batman could not help but feel a little sympathetic to Aresia. The woman had gone through a great deal of trauma as a child and was then raised by powerful, immortal warriors that had long been taught to hate men. In some ways, she was not that different from him after he had experienced his own childhood trauma, but that did not mean he was going to take things easy on her. Aresia had still committed a crime and allied with a gang of supervillains in his city, and when it came to Gotham's safety, a lot of things tended to take a backseat in Batman's eyes. When the scanner on the Batwing suddenly picked up an emergency signal from the airfield and numerous other frequencies of radio chatter that sympathetic part of him started to diminish, especially given what he heard over said radio. When the three arrived in Gotham and saw the state that the city had fallen into, any ideas of sympathy towards the rogue Amazon were all but extinguished in seconds.

The entire city was in a state of chaos, and that was saying something in Gotham. Fires were breaking out in several buildings, cars were crashed into each other and abandoned, and numerous people were collapsing in the middle of the streets. As they looked on at this, the three heroes were quickly able to realize that the cause of this was the fact that literally half the city had become infected with some sort of plague, namely the male half. This was very obvious given how only the women of Gotham's finest were doing whatever they could to keep the city from falling apart while every man within sight seemed to have collapsed after contracting some sort of disease. Batman was glad that Robin was over in Blüdhaven helping Nightwing with another case right now, but as for why only the men were suddenly getting so sick, he could only guess, but right now, that did not matter, because Gotham needed both him and any other heroes it could get right now to help out in any way that they could.

That was why Batman, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Girl were taking to the streets, skies, and rooftops of Gotham to help whoever and however they could minutes after the Batwing had landed, with the Dark Knight only pausing in his efforts to help his city to check in with Batgirl so that he could make sure that Alfred was alright. When the redhead told him that Alfred was already in the hospital after falling victim, the Dark Knight quickly found his efforts redoubled in order to hurry this along so that they could find the rogue Amazon, because she had now made it personal for him. It was actually just a few hours after he had learned this news that he and the two heroines finally ran into Captain America, who had just burst out of the window of a burning building with a child held safely in his arms. They were all a bit worried by the fact that the window the super soldier had jumped out of was several stories up, but Cap's agility and shield made sure that his descent to the ground did not end badly for him or the boy in his arms.

After getting to his feet again, Cap turned to Hawkgirl, Batman, and Donna right when they landed next to him and held the kid so that they could see that it was just a small boy who had fallen victim to the plague as well. "Glad to see you're all back, because we could really use the help," Cap started as Donna rushed over to do what she could in checking the boy's health.

"Is he alright," Batman questioned, nodding to the boy.

"From what I can tell, I was lucky to find him when I did, and not just because the building room I found him in was on fire, but he doesn't seem to be doing well," Cap reported.

"Captain America's right. We need to get this child to the nearest healers as quickly as possible," Donna confirmed.

"I've got it covered," Hawkgirl said as she gently lifted the boy from Cap's arms and into her own, and she was immediately racing away to the nearest hospital with a few flaps of her wings.

"And how are you doing," Batman asked Cap once Hawkgirl had left. If the Dark Knight was being honest, his own vision was starting to blur a little, telling him that he was starting to become infected as well, and he knew that Cap had been out here for longer than he had, so there was no telling how well the super soldier was at the moment.

"I'm alright," Cap insisted. "The Super Soldier Serum that Erskine gave me enhanced my immune system so that I couldn't easily get sick, so I think I'll be okay for a while. I wish I could say the same for Superman, Flash, and Green Lantern though. Superman was one of the first to be infected, and Lantern soon had to take Flash up to the Watchtower a few hours later. When Diana got back, I found out that John had collapsed the minute he had gotten Flash as far as the station's hangar."

"And you're sure that you're okay," Donna asked in concern.

"I'm…I'm positive," Cap tried to insist, but Batman was able to catch the way he hesitated and groaned a little when he said that, indicating that Steve was probably starting to fall victim to this plague as well, or that he already had and was somehow managing to fight against it for the moment.

Before the super soldier could be further questioned on that by either Batman or Donna, Wonder Woman suddenly dropped down next to them, having spotted the group from where she had been doing a fly-by in order to find anyone else that was still in trouble. "Batman, you were right. It was a renegade Amazon," Diana revealed.

"Aresia, we know," Donna informed her sister. "And we have to find her fast."

"Agreed, but we should also be a little wary of at least two of the newer members of the Gang when we find them: Madame Viper and Madame Masque. I don't know much about the latter aside from what I've seen in news reports about her encounters with Iron Man, but if Madame Viper is anything like her ancestor from the Forties, then she shouldn't be underestimated for a second," Cap suggested.

"Before any of that though, we should at least try to get as much of this area under control as we can," Batman said, though it was clear to anyone that it was not a suggestion; it was an order.

Captain America nodded in agreement with the Dark Knight before looking to the younger Amazon. "Wonder Girl, you take to the skies and keep an eye out for any other victims of this plague. You'll need to get every victim you find to the nearest hospital, but your main priority is any and all small children."

"Understood," Wonder Girl nodded, and she was soon taking off once again, just missing when Cap had to rub his eyes a little as he let out a very soft groan.

Wonder Woman had not missed either of these things, and she immediately asked, "Steve, are you alright?"

"I think I should be asking you that, considering what we've learned by now," Captain America easily deflected, a fact that Batman noticed but did not call the captain out on.

Diana could not help but sigh sadly as she replied, "I just…I can't believe that one of my sisters could actually…"

That was about as far as Diana got in her sentence, as she and Batman were both suddenly pulled aside by Steve in order to avoid being hit by a run-away bus. Batman was the first to get back on his feet again, and Cap was soon following after the Dark Knight in casing after the public transport. Neither of them had managed to reach it before the bus crashed through a radio tower, sending it falling towards a police woman and a medic that were trying to move another pair of victims out of the streets, but thankfully Wonder Woman had managed to catch the tower before it landed on top of them. Eventually, Batman had gotten close enough for him to be able to fire his grapple and pull himself into the bus, and after moving the sick driver out of the way, he immediately started trying to turn the bus clear of any further collisions. His efforts did not quite succeed though, and he eventually found himself on a collision course with the fire truck a rescue unit was using to extinguish one of the many fires in the city.

Reacting quickly, Batman made a sharp turn that sent the bus onto its side as it slid towards the fire truck, and for a moment, it seemed that the large vehicles would end up colliding with one another. Thankfully, Captain America had managed to find a way to jump up onto the bus's roof, and when the vehicle had suddenly turned onto its side, he had managed to get between it and the fire truck with his shield forward. The minute that the vehicle collided with the indestructible shield, Steve was pushing back against it with his feet digging into the ground and his teeth gritted in effort so that he could prevent any more damage from happening to the city. After another few, tense seconds, the bus finally came to a stop, and Cap ended up avoiding any chances of being flattened between it and the fire truck behind him by just a few inches, much to his relief. Once he had slid out from between the vehicles, he saw Wonder Woman land in front of him just as Batman had set the sick driver down, only to end up collapsing a few seconds later.

"Batman," Wonder Woman exclaimed in worry as she caught him before he could hit the pavement, and upon turning him over, she had to gasp in shock at seeing that Batman had indeed become infected as well.

Seeing this, Cap quickly waved over the nearest medic so that they could attend to the driver, and then moved to Diana and said, "You get him back to the Watchtower so that J'onn can try to help him along with the others. I'll stay here and...and do whatever I can to…to…"

Diana's attention quickly moved from setting the Dark Knight down on the ground to the super soldier just in time to see Cap lose his balance and start falling to the ground as well. "Steve," Diana shouted in concern as she managed to catch him in her arms. She then lowered him down and turned him over so that she could properly see his face once she had removed his mask, and when she did, she gasped in shock at seeing that he too had now fallen to this virus as well. "No," Diana whispered before her hand shot up to her comm. link. "Wonder Woman to Hawkgirl. Captain America and Batman are both down. I need help getting them back to the Watchtower now!"

* * *

Around this same time, Aresia was actually looking down on the chaos that had unfolded from a rooftop somewhere in Gotham along with Star Sapphire, Tsukuri, Madame Masque, and Madame Viper, having revealed what her poison to them and the rest of the Injustice Gang earlier that evening by using it on some of them. Grundy, Shade, and Copperhead all ended up falling victim to it and collapsing seconds later, but the female members of the group were a bit surprised to find that they were still perfectly healthy, or at least, as close to it as they normally were. After following Aresia out of their hideout to see what had befallen the rest of Gotham, it all started to make a little more sense why they had not become victims of the virus as well. "So the poison only affects men," Tsukuri asked, just to make sure they had not misunderstood.

"Exactly. That's why it didn't hurt you four," Aresia confirmed.

"But why would you do this? What do you have to gain from this," Star Sapphire questioned.

"What do I have to gain?! Look around you," Aresia exclaimed with a passion. "Man's world is filled with greed, deception, and cruelty, but I'm going to change all of that. Today, we women take control."

"You can't be serious," Masque stated, thinking that Aresia was probably exaggerating a little.

"Can't I," Aresia smirked in response.

At this remark, Sapphire's expression became a little unsure while Tsukuri had to smirk a little in response. Madame Masque's expression was hidden behind her mask of course, but Viper on the other hand could not help but grin devilishly at what Aresia was suggesting. "Darling, I like the way you think," the green haired woman complimented.

After another minute or so, Masque just shrugged and said, "Well, seeing as there are a few men in my own life I'd rather see dead, I can't say I'm against this idea."

Aresia's smirk only grew at hearing the two voicing their agreement with her plans, and she then turned to the last two to see what they thought. After exchanging a quick glance with Tsukuri, Star Sapphire gained a smirk of her own and said, "We're in."

"Good, because the next part of my plan is the most important," Aresia revealed.

* * *

After getting Batman and Captain America back to the Watchtower and under J'onn's care, the Martian revealed to his female teammates that the heroes were not infected with a virus, but an allergen. Sadly, that was the only revelation that J'onn had in the way of this disease so far, because he still had not managed to isolate whatever the allergen was. Still, he was continuing his efforts, and while he was doing that, the two heroines decided to return to Gotham, both so that they could track down Aresia and help quell the chaos that had befallen the city. Batgirl and Wonder Girl may have already taken to the streets in order to help the Gotham emergency responders, but that did not mean that Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl were going to just leave the two to handle it all on their own.

Upon reaching the surface though, they soon found out that their assistance was not needed as much as they had thought it would. The area of the city that they had been working to secure had already been contained, and while some amount of thanks for that did go to Batgirl and Wonder Girl, the two insisted that most of the credit went to the brave women of Gotham who were able to respond to the crisis and were now moving to the next area. Looking around and seeing how well in hand the ladies had things, Diana had to smile a little as she commented, "Almost reminds me of home."

"I know what you mean, and yet I can't help but find it more impressive," Donna agreed with her sister.

"Maybe, but who wants to live in a world without men," Batgirl questioned with a hand on her hip.

"They can't possibly be that essential to your life," Donna lightly scoffed in disbelief.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it, kid," Hawkgirl grinned, drawing a look of light surprise from both Amazons. "Come on, let's find Aresia."

None of the other female heroes could argue with that, and they were all soon taking to the sky and rooftops once again so that they could find any kind of lead on where Aresia could be at this moment, though Donna and Diana were both lagging behind a little as they contemplated Hawkgirl's words. Their trains of thought came to a grinding halt when they saw a helicopter suddenly fly into a group of power lines and then begin to start falling out of the air. Diana wasted no time in swooping down so that she could save both the chopper and the pilots inside, but unfortunately, she had not seen the power line that had been cut by the helicopter's rotor blades, and as a result, she received a very nasty shock when it collided with her and forced her to lose her grip on the chopper.

Seeing what had happened, Wonder Girl immediately swooped in to try and ease the chopper's descent while saving her sister, but she only succeeded in the latter, because the chopper ended up crash landing on the roof of a building. Luckily it did not seem like anyone had been too seriously hurt, as the pilot had been knocked unconscious in the landing while her copilot simply had a slight headache, but when the power cable suddenly ignited the fuel that had leaked out of the damaged helicopter, Hawkgirl and Batgirl each knew that they did not have much time to get clear before the vehicle blew, so once they had pulled the pilots out of their vehicle, they immediately joined the Wonder Sisters in racing away from it. They managed to get a safe distance away from the explosion, but the shockwave ended up sending the enflamed helicopter over the ledge to the street below.

Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl both raced after the vehicle once they made sure that Batgirl and Wonder Girl would be able to see to the pilots, but they had to pause for a second when they saw the chopper suddenly start to slow in its descent. After a minute or so, they started to realize that it appeared as though some type of electromagnetic field had surrounded the vehicle and was now trying to slow it down so that it would not harm anyone or so that they could catch it, and their awe at the sight must have prompted whoever was doing this into action, because a minute later, something suddenly shot past them while a new voice said, "No worries ladies. I've got this."

A minute later, the magnetic field around the chopper suddenly seemed to die down a little, and the vehicle was then being pushed back up to where it had fallen from, and as it was brought up, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl found themselves with a chance to get a glimpse of the mystery hero who had come to their aid. At first glance, they figured that the person they were seeing was Iron Man, but after a minute, they were able to tell that while this individual did seem to wear a suit of armor that was similar to Stark's bodyguard's, the person in question had a distinctly feminine build to them, at least if what from what they could tell just by looking at the suit. Also unlike Iron Man's armor, this person's suit was silver and purple as opposed to the gold and hot-rod red that was practically iconic to the Iron Man suit, and it seemed that this suit had other capabilities aside from those that Iron Man's suit had, especially if the fact that she seemed to be controlling the electromagnetic field around the helicopter was any indication.

After the armored hero had set the chopper down in a safe place on the roof, the two Leaguers and their fellow heroines immediately made their way over to her, and once they were standing in front of her, they saw that the eyes of her helmet's mask had an orange color to them, unlike the blue that Iron Man's helmet had. "Are you…the Iron Man I've heard about," Wonder Girl asked, clearly not having quite taken notice of what her sister and Shayera had already suspected.

Those suspicions were true, when the armored hero spoke in a voice that, while disguised by a voice filter was still obviously female. "Sorry, but that's the original armored hero you're thinking of. The name's Rescue," the armored woman introduced herself. Her gaze then turned to Batgirl and she seemed to be suppressing a small squeal before she said, "Oh my god! You're Batgirl! It is an honor to meet you! You were like, my biggest inspiration for when I first became a superhero on Team Iron Man, only you're way cooler since you're part of Team Batman!"

"Uh…thanks, and for the record, we kinda call ourselves the Bat-Clan," Batgirl replied with a slightly strained smile, having not expected such a reaction from Rescue.

"Okay, now that is a cool superhero team name. We're still working on something better for our group. Or should I say I am, because certain people, Iron Man and War Machine, think that having one for just the three of us is silly or something," Rescue stated, going on a small ramble as she did.

"Uh, Rescue, not that we don't appreciate the help, but what're you doing here? I thought that you and the rest of your group typically stayed in Miami or New York," Hawkgirl interrupted.

"Well, Stark had a meeting with Mister Wayne about a possible partnership on an upcoming project, but he couldn't make it so he sent his assistant, Pepper Potts, who is _not_ a secretary by the way, in his place, and since Iron Man is usually Stark's bodyguard, guess who fills that role for Miss Potts," Rescue explained, indicating herself at the end. "When I saw things start going to hell out here, I got permission from Pepper to come help, and now…well, here we are."

"We appreciate it," Wonder Woman nodded. "In fact, we could actually use a little more help if you'd be willing to lend us a hand."

"A chance to team up with Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, and…uh…Who're you," Rescue asked as she looked to Donna.

"I'm Wonder Girl," Donna replied. She looked off to the side a little and muttered, "Still not used to that name."

"Got it. Point is, a chance to team up with all of you? Count me in," Rescue nodded. "So, what're we doing exactly?"

"We're trying to track down the group responsible for this. One of which is actually a renegade Amazon, Aresia," Diana stated.

"I had a feeling some supervillain was behind this, but I wasn't expecting that, so I've had my suit's computer scanning for any kind of alert that could lead me to where they were," Rescue revealed. "I wasn't expecting the Amazon thing though. Honestly, I just thought this was one of Madame Masque's messed up plans."

"Funny you should mention her," Batgirl started to say before the comm. device in her cowl suddenly went off. Since she knew that only a select few people outside of the Bat-Clan had access to that frequency, she immediately assumed that it had to be someone from GCPD, and she had a pretty good idea of who it might be, since she had asked this particular person to keep an eye out for anything strange after telling them what they knew about this situation so far. "Batgirl here. Have you got something for me, Detective Montoya?"

 _"I might Batgirl, but I'll leave that for you to decide once you hear about it,"_ the detective replied. _"Word just came in from over the wire that someone's broken into the nearby military airbase. I wouldn't say it's anything certain, but the description that came through from one of the security cameras before it went down seems to match one of the perps you told us about. I'd send a squad to investigate or back you up, but we're overworked trying to keep the city together as is. It's almost like that first Christmas Eve that Batman was around all over again out there."_

"Don't worry Detective. We'll do everything we can on our end to get this resolved, and thanks for the heads-up," Batgirl replied, and she then turned to the others. "So, what reason do you all think Aresia and her new friends would want to break into an airbase for?"

"Well if her plan is to wipe out all the men in the world, they would want to get this toxin out into the atmosphere," Hawkgirl reasoned.

"Which means they would need to get airborne somehow," Diana continued.

"Hammer Industries does have an experimental fighter jet on that base that they were planning to show off to the military later this week. Normally, I wouldn't really think much of it given how lousy Hammer Tech normally is, but if the specs on this particular jet are up to code, it would be perfect for what they need," Rescue revealed. This had earned her a few looks from the other women that were obviously questioning her on how she could know such things about Hammer Tech. Rescue simply shrugged and replied, "Iron Man, War Machine, and I have crossed paths with Justin Hammer on more than one occasion in a bad way so trying to prove he's had dealings with the criminal underworld has become something of a mission for us."

The group decided to leave that as a matter for later and immediately began making their way towards the airbase, hoping that they would be able to stop Aresia's plan before it was too late. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl were just glad that they did not have to go in without any additional backup, because there would likely have been no way to say for certain if they could have done much with just the two of them.

* * *

Aresia and her fellow femme fatales were indeed at the airbase, and they had easily managed to secure the supposedly state-of-the-art jet that Hammer Industries had designed. Upon looking over both the jet and its systems, Aresia had dubbed the jet to be absolutely perfect for their needs, and it was only moments later that she and the others had started loading the chemicals onto the jet and into the missiles it was carrying. The plan was that they would take the jet to a certain altitude, and upon shooting the missiles loaded with Aresia's toxin into the upper atmosphere, they would explode and the let the winds scatter her poison all over the world, leading to the end of all men on the planet, if not most of them. Thinking about how she was so close to achieve her goals, Aresia could not help but grin excitedly, but she still managed to school her features when Tsukuri and Madame Masque came out of the jet.

"That's the last one. All the chemicals are onboard," Tsukuri reported.

"Good. Then there's just one unfinished matter to attend to," Aresia announced.

"And it will remain unfinished," Diana's voice suddenly declared, drawing the three's attention to the hangar door just as the Amazon Princess came soaring in along with Batgirl, Hawkgirl, Rescue, and Wonder Girl.

It barely took the five long to subdue the three, but it did not seem that Aresia was too concerned about it. After a second, the reason for lack of concern became apparent when an energy field appeared between the heroes and their enemies courtesy of Star Sapphire. "What took you. I mean, aside from picking up a few additional friends and your little sister, that is," Aresia asked, indicating that she had been expecting them to come. "Diana, I had Madame Masque trip that alarm in order to bring you here for one simple reason: to offer you one last chance to join our noble cause, and the offer is open to the rest of your friends as well."

"You call killing thousands of people a 'noble cause'? Well no wonder Masque joined up with you. You're definitely her preferred brand of crazy," Rescue quipped in response while glaring at the masked villainess in question, who they all just knew was returning said glare with an equal amount of venom.

"Aresia, man's world may not be perfect, but destroying it isn't the answer," Diana insisted, hoping that she could still reason with her adopted Amazon sister.

"You would stand against us? Your sisters," Aresia demanded.

"Yes. We both would," Donna replied for Wonder Woman with her arms crossed in a show of defiance.

"A pity," Aresia sighed, and she then signaled for Star Sapphire and the others to attack. In an instant, Wonder Woman was deflecting Star Sapphire's blasts with her bracelets while the rest of the girls attempted to close in on Aresia. In the end, only Wonder Girl managed to get through to the renegade Amazon, while the others were intercepted by Madame Masque and Tsukuri. After the latter had kicked Hawkgirl away, she had attempted to further engage the winged Leaguer, but ended up with her path blocked by Batgirl.

"Care to go for Round Two," the redhead mocked as she waved a hand at Tsukuri in the universal gesture for "come and get me". Tsukuri just glared at the redhead and immediately directed all of her attention onto her, leaving Hawkgirl with a chance to provide Wonder Girl with a little backup. Batgirl was easily able to draw a pair of batarangs in order to defend herself from Tsukuri's sword, and from that point on it was merely a matter of both martial artists trying not to let the other gain the upper hand in anyway. It may have lasted forever, had Batgirl not given herself an opening by throwing one of batarangs at Tsukuri as a way of distracting her long enough for the redhead to draw a bola that she immediately used to tie up the sword-wielding woman's legs. A swift kick to the head was that Batgirl needed to knock Tsukuri out of the action at that point, but she had not expected to end up being hit by Donna when she was suddenly thrown into her by Aresia, who then managed to knock out Hawkgirl with a single blow.

Around the same time that this was happening, Rescue had found herself battling it out with Madame Masque, a fact that the female member of Team Iron Man was certainly not complaining about. "You have no idea how much I'm gonna enjoy this, Whitney," Rescue chuckled as she blocked one of Masque's blows with her arm.

"Feeling's mutual, bitch," Masque replied before spinning herself around to land a kick into Rescue's chest.

Rescue easily managed to recover from the blow and fire a quick blast from one of her repulsors at Masque. The supervillain simply leapt to the side in order to avoid being hit, but that left her open for when Rescue sent a kick of her own into Madame Masque's side, and since Rescue was wearing armor, her attack had a bit more strength behind it than a normal person's did, thus, Madame Masque was sent flying across the room before she landed on the floor. When the masked villainess tried to rise, she found herself barely able to move for some unknown reason, at least until she turned to see Rescue holding an arm towards her. "What're you doing? Let me up," Masque snarled.

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen. As for how I'm holding you there, well what can I say? You'd be surprise what a girl can do with a little electromagnetism," Rescue quipped in reply, only to end up grunting in pain when she too was suddenly hit from behind by Aresia.

All that was really left to deal with now was Diana's battle against Star Sapphire, and that came to an easy end when Diana finally managed to toss a barrel of oil into the path of one of Star Sapphire's blasts, knocking her out of the air and into a wall. Aresia immediately charged Diana, knocking her over to the base of the jet's boarding ramp, but Wonder Woman was quick to flip herself back up onto her feet and assume a fighting stance. Naturally, she ended up being rather surprised when Aresia did nothing to try and attack her, but instead just smirked at her like she had already won. "A valiant effort, Diana, but you won't stop us. I guarantee it," the blonde stated, and she then nodded to other end of the jet's boarding ramp, drawing Diana's attention in that direction as well, leading her to see something that she wished she had not.

There, at the top of the boarding ramp, was Madame Viper with a knife being held at the throat of a captive Hippolyta. The Amazon queen had actually come to the hangar in the hopes of being able to talk Aresia out of doing committing this crime, but the adopted Amazon did not listen and instead took Hippolyta as a hostage for in case Diana and the other female heroes showed up and refused to join her. "Let her go," Diana demanded, her fists clenching tightly as she held herself back from attacking Aresia or Viper, while the other heroines recovered from when they had been taken out of the fight earlier.

"You're in no position to give orders here," Aresia pointed out, not showing the least bit of concern when Hawkgirl flew over to stand next to Diana, with Donna, Rescue, and Batgirl joining them soon after. "Don't move! I'm warning you: I don't want to hurt her, but I will!"

"Here's a better idea: Eat laser grenades, bitch," Rescue shouted as she let lose a pair of energy bombs from her shoulders. Aresia easily deflected the blasts with her armbands, but Rescue's preemptive attack did allow the heroes a chance to try and charge in. It did not do them much good, because since all of their attention was on the villains before them and their captive, they missed seeing Star Sapphire and Madame Masque firing on them before it was too late, and as a result, Rescue was knocked aside and through a few different crates while the rest of the heroes were all knocked into unconsciousness by said blasts.

Leaving the heroes where they were, the five villainesses immediately boarded the jet with their hostage in tow, and by the time that the heroes had managed to get back on their feet again, the jet was already halfway through its take-off. Diana and Donna were both about to go after the jet, when Hawkgirl stopped them both. "I found this inside," the winged hero said as she helped up a vial of what could only have been one thing.

"The allergen," Diana asked.

"Has to be. It might be the key to an antidote."

"You and Batgirl take it to J'onn. Rescue, Donna and I will stop Aresia," Wonder Woman stated.

"Okay, I know I can probably catch up with that thing, but are you sure you and Wonder Girl can keep up," Rescue asked, honestly concerned about the Amazons being able to do so.

"It's fast, but so are we," Diana replied confidently, and she was immediately taking off in the direction of the jet with Donna right behind her, just to prove her point.

"Okay…wow. That is awesome," Rescue stated before she too blasted off after the jet.

Hawkgirl and Batgirl just watched the three in their departure before the older redhead led the way back to the Javelin so that they could get the sample of the allergen back to the Watchtower, hoping that it would be of some help.

* * *

It was not long before the two Amazons and the armored heroine had caught up to the jet, but by the time they had, it had already gotten pretty close to the altitude that Aresia wanted it to be at, so if they were going to successfully stop her, they had to slow down the plane and get it lower. "Your armor can manipulate electromagnetic fields, right," Diana asked Rescue, who quickly nodded in reply. "Can you use that ability to force the plane down?"

"What do I look like, Magneto? A small med-evac helicopter is one thing, but a jet that size will do a lot more than push my armor past its limits," Rescue immediately denied.

"Then I guess we'll just have to bring it down the old fashioned way, right," Donna suggested.

"Exactly, Little Sister," Diana confirmed.

"Dibs on the first shot," Rescue called out, and she immediately fired a repulsor blast at one of the engines. Her shot was just what the doctor had ordered, as the plane immediately began going back down at a rapid pace, but it eventually managed to level out before it hit the ocean below it. Thankfully, it still seemed to be going down, and none of the heroes planned on letting the jet get any higher, so they immediately started flying closer to the cockpit so that they could hopefully get aboard. While doing so would be easy for Rescue, Diana and Donna found that they had to land on the jet before they could get into the ship, and that drew the attention of the supervillains inside.

The first response that the villainesses gave to the heroes landing on the ship was having Star Sapphire take to the skies and try to blast the Amazon sisters of the ship's hull, but Rescue was not about to let that happen, and she immediately moved to intercept the rogue member of the Sapphire Corps. A stray shot from Star Sapphire ended up damaging the plane a little making it sink lower from the air more quickly than it already was, but none of them really paid much mind to such details. No, the thing that Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were more concerned with was when Madame Masque suddenly came out onto the hull so that she could try and knock the Amazons off. While this would have been a problem for most people, the masked villainess had no trouble staying on the jet while she engaged her opponents, unlike Diana and Donna who had to do their best to watch their footing. When Star Sapphire finally managed to slip past Rescue, she attempted to fire a blast that would knock the two Amazons off the jet when someone else suddenly fired a blast into her path.

Looking to the source, everyone spotted the Javelin swooping down from above as it fired its weapons on Star Sapphire and the villains' jet. This forced Madame Viper to activate the stolen aircraft's weapons systems and begin trying to shoot down either Rescue or the Javelin, but thankfully, Hawkgirl was no slouch as a pilot, and the same could be said for her copilot who immediately insisted that Shayera go out to help the others. "You sure you can handle this on your own," Hawkgirl asked as she stood up from her seat while keeping a firm hold on the chair so that she would not fall off balance.

Batgirl merely turned the yoke so that they would avoid another enemy blast and then fired off another shot in response that took out one of the cannons on the stolen aircraft and then replied, "Just like flying the Batwing. Go!"

Hawkgirl just nodded and then took off to help the rest of the heroes that were currently outside, her mace already crackling with electricity by the time she was airborne. Unfortunately, she soon found herself having to pull some fast flying maneuvers in order to avoid being blasted by the remaining cannons, which Rescue, Wonder Woman, and Wonder Girl were doing their best to take out as quickly as possible, which was not easy since Madame Masque was insistent on getting in the way. When one blast managed to get through and hit Shayera, Wonder Woman managed to knock Madame Masque off the jet and then used her lasso to save Hawkgirl from falling to a watery grave. After looking to where Masque had fallen, Diana breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw that Rescue had caught her before she had fallen to her doom.

"What? Did you really think I'd let her fall to her death or something? I may not like Masque, but that doesn't mean I want her dead. Besides, I don't want to risk her getting away again," Rescue stated as she lifted the masked villainess over her shoulder. She then fired a quick repulsor beam that made a hole in the stolen aircraft and said, "You guys get in there and stop the rest of these creeps. I'll catch up after I drop off the garbage on the Javelin."

The other three women immediately nodded in response and did exactly as Rescue said, soon leading them into a brief conflict with Madame Viper and Tsukuri. A very brief conflict seeing as it only lasted long enough for Hawkgirl and Wonder Girl to knock both of the two into the control console at the front, while Aresia just gaped. "You fools! Don't you see? We're not your enemy; it's the men! They must be destroyed," Aresia shouted insistently.

"You're wrong Aresia. Without men, you wouldn't still be here," Hippolyta's voice suddenly said in a surprisingly calm tone for someone who was supposed to have been held captive. Upon turning to where the Amazon queen's voice had come from, the three Amazons all gasped a little at seeing that Hippolyta had managed to break free sometime during the fighting and was now standing proudly before them like she had never been captured. Her statement however had left everyone more than a little confused, and it clearly showed on their faces since Hippolyta immediately went into an explanation on the matter, directing her words towards Aresia more than anyone else. "After your ship sank, you must've lost consciousness as you drifted on your makeshift raft. You would surely have drowned had the ship's captain not found you and pulled you to safety. Valiantly, he struggled to keep you alive until he brought you to the shores of Themyscira, but the effort was too much for his heart. His final resting place is a simple, unmarked grave. He's the only man ever buried on Themyscira. So you see, for all your hatred of men, it turns out you owe your life to one."

That was certainly a curve ball for everyone in the room, but none more so than Aresia herself. "Why didn't you ever tell me about this," she demanded.

"I didn't think it was important. I didn't think he was important," Hippolyta admitted.

"Maybe it's time to rethink that," Hawkgirl suggested. Hippolyta did not say anything in response to that, but Aresia did have something to say about what she had just learned.

"So everything you ever preached was a lie," the adopted Amazon snarled.

"Not everything," Hippolyta tried to insist, but she found it hard to make her words convincing at the moment.

For a few seconds, it almost seemed that they were finally getting through to Aresia, but that was quickly proven false when she declared, "Still, the acts of one man cannot redeem the sins of his kind. They all must pay!"

Hippolyta immediately reached to stop Aresia, but the adopted Amazon just batted the queen aside, sending her falling out of the ship's still open door. Hawkgirl immediately dived down to go after her, and Diana and Donna would have done the same had Aresia not blocked their path after hitting the control to launch the missiles. As it turned out though, Hawkgirl did not have to do anything to save Hippolyta, as Rescue had already saved her and then flown her safely over to the Javelin. Seeing that was taken care of, Hawkgirl immediately headed back towards the stolen aircraft with Rescue following soon after. "The missiles are gonna be firing at any second now. Any ideas on how to stop them," Hawkgirl asked once the armored hero had caught up.

"From what I remember of the designs, every time this jet or really any similar jet that I know of launches missiles, they have to be lowered down from the storage bays, so we could just try sealing the bay doors shut or something," Rescue suggested.

"Better than nothing," Hawkgirl shrugged, gripping her mace once she had it ready. A minute later, the two had managed to either seal the bays or jam them partially closed so that the missiles would be stuck inside through a combination of Hawkgirl's mace and Rescue's repulsors.

Aresia had eventually managed to hold Diana and Donna at her mercy when she noticed that the missiles had not been lowered into launch position but were still going to fire while they were inside the ship with them. "Shut the missiles off," she shouted to Tsukuri and Viper.

"It's too late," Tsukuri shouted as she grabbed a jetpack and ran for one of the partially opened hatches, with Viper doing the same seconds later.

"Wait, you can't leave," Aresia protested while she struggled to hold Diana and Donna back.

"Sorry darling, but I don't like you that much," Viper said before she bailed out, with Tsukuri doing the same seconds later.

Seeing Aresia distracted allowed Diana a chance to break the hold she had on both her and her sister, and Donna was quick to follow up by kicking Aresia's feet out from under her. This left Aresia open for the left hook that Diana threw at her, which sent the blonde flying into the control console behind her, and leaving the sisters to run over to the plane's controls in the hopes of being able to get the jet out of the air before it blew. Their attempts ended in failure though, as Aresia was quick to recover and she then threw the damaged console right at the sisters, knocking them out of the jet through the front window. Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl could then do nothing more than watch as the stolen jet exploded in a brilliant blaze of fire and smoke with Aresia still onboard, and they were soon joining the others on the Javelin in hanging their heads in sadness. As the Javelin flew away, the remains of Aresia's jet just floated in the water for a moment before sinking, showing that sometimes there was nothing anyone could do to save a person, even if they are superheroes.

* * *

"How're you feeling," Wonder Woman asked with a smile when she saw J'onn, Batman, and Captain America approaching her and Hawkgirl, all completely recovered.

"Better," Batman replied for all three of them. "It's a good thing you were able to recover Aresia's notes from her hideout."

"You should really thank Batgirl. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't even have found the hideout. Not to mention the scans Rescue made of the allergen sample were a big help in making the antidote," Wonder Woman pointed out.

"Superman and Green Lantern have almost finished distributing it," Hawkgirl mentioned as she looked to one of the monitors, which was showing the two heroes as they flew over Gotham doing just as she had said they were.

Cap smiled a little in relief at this, but it quickly vanished when he saw the sad look on Diana's face, and he had a good idea about a few reasons as to why she would be as happy about all of this. "How's Donna holding up after everything that had happened," the super soldier asked.

"She's managing, Athena bless her," Diana replied. "It's not the first time she's had to deal with losing a friend, but Aresia was a lot like family to us both, so…" Diana did not need to say anymore for Cap to understand, as he was soon placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, a gesture she appreciated if the smile of thanks she gave him was any indication. "If only Aresia could've learned to see the noble qualities in you men."

"I definitely could've taught that bad babe a thing or two about guys," Flash commented as he joined the conversation with a soda and a hotdog in his hands. "Too bad we never met, and besides that, maybe if she hadn't been so busy trying to beat him up, she could've learned a few good things about guys from our resident super soldier."

Cap had to smirk a little at Flash's small compliment, but it quickly turned to a look of disgust when the speedster let out a loud belch, which he was sure was matched by the one Batman was currently hiding.

Diana and Hawkgirl both exchanged a small look between them before they both discreetly shook their heads in the negative and Diana said, "Maybe its…just as well that she did not meet you Flash."

"What's that supposed to mean," Flash asked, sounding a bit offended.

"Something tells me she wouldn't be able to see past your…interesting exterior image," Cap replied for the two women of the Justice League. That seemed to raise Flash's spirits a little, right to the point that he completely missed the looks of relieved thanks that Diana and Shayera gave Steve for saving them the trouble of having to explain it to the speedster themselves.

Diana then smirked a little to Steve and said, "You know, we never did finish our shopping trip, and I could really use a distraction from everything that happened today."

Steve's face paled a little when he heard this, but in the end he just lightly sighed in defeat and said, "Fine, but this time we're not going in uniform."

"Sure, but either way you're still taking me shopping," Diana replied as she hooked her arms around one of Cap's and dragged him out of the room.

As he watched them leave, Flash just leaned over to J'onn and whispered, "See? The guy's a regular gentleman. That, and in the case of a certain Amazon, he is so whipped."

"Indeed," J'onn nodded in agreement, and one could have sworn that the Martian actually had a small smirk on his face when he said that, one that was shared by both Hawkgirl and Batman to a certain extent.

* * *

 ** _AN: Pretty cool stuff here, huh? And I also managed to address a couple of things that kinda bugged me about this episode in its original version. Okay, so maybe it was mainly just one thing. The whole crisis had pretty much taken place in Gotham, Batman's city, right? So if that was the case, then where the heck were the rest of the Bat-Clan during the whole thing, or at least Alfred, in the original version of the episodes? Seriously, I know Nightwing was probably off in Bludhaven like I had mentioned in the chapter, but we didn't hear anything about Batgirl, Robin, or Alfred. I know that the series is mainly focused on the big seven heroes in the Justice League and all, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't hear at least a little about these types of things. I mean come on, Supergirl had more cameo appearances/references than the rest of the Bat-Clan, and that just...I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem right. And I'm not just saying that because I'm such a big Batgirl fan and a big Nightwing fan._**

 ** _Any-who, did you really think I'd have Donna appear in this story and not have her do something when this chapter rolled around? It made perfect sense to have her lend a hand in this crisis since an Amazon from Themyscira was involved, and it also helped Hawkgirl avoid any misunderstandings that she had dealt with in the original plot line. And speaking of guest appearances, check out the additions to the Injustice Gang this time around: one Madame Viper/Hydra and Madame Masque. If you're having a hard time visualizing the two, just think of Viper's typical appearance and the appearance Madame Masque sports in Iron Man Armored Adventures._**

 ** _Speaking of Iron Man, check out who else jumped in on the action: she's the lone female member of Iron Man's little team of armored heroes, Tony Stark's redheaded love interest by day and butt-kicking superhero by night, the Batgirl to Iron Man's Batman, ladies and gentlemen, She is...Rescue! Yeah, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to add in another Marvel hero, and really, I just had to say who better than Rescue? Plus, the last time we saw Pepper Potts become Rescue was in the Iron Man animated series that I just mentioned, and it was only for like three episodes. How's that fair? Oh, and if you're having a hard time picturing her appearance, just mix her comic book style with that of the Iron Man Armored Adventures style._**

 ** _While we're on the subject of guest appearances, I have to admit that originally, I was also going to introduce this story's version of Wolverine into the mix, you know go with the old Logan is seen by the heroes saving the day and yet he isn't sick, so they use a sample of his blood to make an antidote bit, but that just didn't seem to fit all that well after I really thought it over. Not only has that story line been done quite a few times before, but it also kinda takes away from the whole girl power vibe that this chapter had to it, so I ended up scrapping that idea and just giving the mutants a cameo reference by having Rescue mention Magneto._**

 ** _Now, on another note, let's talk about what's coming up in the next chapter. If you're expecting the adventures of the episodes entitled "Legends", I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disappoint you for two reasons. First off, while that adventure will be taking place, it won't be like how it was in the cartoon aside from how it begins. If you've read the author's notes from the last chapter, then I'm sure you know what that means is coming up soon. The second reason is that next chapter is going to take a little step outside of the main story to focus on things from the perspective of another hero in this grand adventure. You want to know more? Then head Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _Our story takes a brief break from focusing on the adventures of the Justice League, and turns its attention to Spider-Man as he attempts to solve the mystery behind a recent attack on Wonder Woman just outside the UN Building. Having been part of the team that Cap had assembled to make sure she was safe, along with other reasons, Spider-Man feels it's his responsibility to track down the person who was behind the attack before they can pay someone else to make another attempt. The only problem, Spidey's not the only one on the trail. Find out what happens when Spider-Man has to deal with both criminals and a very stubborn, redheaded bat that is clearly not a big fan of his next time in…_** **Interlude 1: Amazing Friends?** ** _._**

 ** _See what I mean now? I'll explain a bit more about this type of thing next time when we get to the first author's note of this upcoming adventure. For now though, I will say that a good majority of the chapter will take us a little more into the adventures of this story's Spider-Man and his history. Until then though, I guess I'll..._**

 ** _[Joker and Deadpool run past screaming like little babies with Lightning still chasing after them, this time while she's riding on her Edolin, Odin]_**

 ** _AN: [looks to where the three had run towards before just shrugging] As I was saying, until then though, I guess I'll just say..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	11. Interlude 1: Amazing Friends?

**_AN: Hey guys! It's time for another round of Justice Marvel, and we're jumping from Cap and League's perspective to that of our favorite, swinging, friendly neighborhood hero: Spider-Man!_**

 ** _[audience applause]_**

 ** _Now let me explain how this little Interlude chapter stuff works. We all know that the any superhero universe is a lot bigger than the stuff we see just one team going through, so naturally there are some other adventures going on somewhere in the background, but they are still pretty major events as well. In this case, we're focusing on some of the more recent adventures of Spidey, at least in regards to what happens in this story, and how things unfold for him in some aspects._**

 ** _Deadpool: Ah who wants to see more of that loser? We've all seen like a million different Spider-Man things, and you yourself have at least three different ideas for Spider-Man crossover stories, four if you count the fact that you're thinking of making the Spider-Verse Arc for your Code Avengers series into a separate story at the moment._**

 ** _AN:...I hate it when he actually has a point. Be that as it may, while most of the interludes will focus on things from Spider-Man's perspective, there is also the chance that other heroes will get a chance to step into the limelight and take the leading role in the interludes, but for right now, Spidey's the main focus. Not only that, but you'll also get to see a little more of the background to this story's interpretation of Spider-Man, such as events and tragedies that he's been through, and how they're still affecting him in the present._**

 ** _Joker: Because everyone's crazy, and all it takes to make them snap is one really bad day._**

 ** _AN:...Let it go lyokoMARVELanime. You've got stuff to do and story to get underway. Now before the psycho peanut gallery manages to drive me up a wall, let's see what's gonna go down here today._**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Interlude 1: Amazing Friends?**

In the aftermath of Aresia's plan to wipe out all men on Earth, somehow word had gotten out that an Amazon from Themyscira had been responsible for the plot, and rumors began to spread that it was just the beginning of a possible attack by the Amazons. Most of the rumors were completely crazy and unfounded of course, but the fact that stories were being formed in the first place was cause for concern, especially if one were to ask Diana or Donna. As much as the two sisters did not wish to further persecute Aresia for her crimes, even though it was well deserved, the two were quick to take action before the rumors could go too far and before anyone started to think that Themyscira was prepared to go to war with the rest of the world, both for the sake of their home and the rest of the world. The other heroes on the League felt that such concerns were a bit misplaced and tried to insist that these wild stories would eventually pass if they were left alone, but Diana insisted on speaking to the people in order to calm them down and alleviate their concerns, believing that doing so would bring a quicker end to the rumors.

That was why Diana was now decked out in one of her best formal attire and walking into the UN Building in order to address the representatives of the world's governments with Donna following just a few paces behind her in similar attire. Donna's reasons for being there were two-fold; the first reason was that she had to be there since she was, as she had put it, babysitting her older sister so that she could later inform her sisters back home about how well Diana was doing in representing them to the world at large, and the second reason was because she did not want her sister to risk getting hurt by anyone who would react more violently or in a more extreme manner to the rumors that had spread. She knew that it was silly to think like that since Diana was more than capable of taking care of herself, a fact that her older sister had proven to her long before she had become Wonder Woman, but Donna could not help but worry all the same, given that Diana was still relatively new to man's world as well, but to a lesser extent than Donna herself was. Thankfully, the younger of the two Amazon sisters was not alone in her concerns, and she was extremely grateful for that fact, which she proved when she raised her arm so that she could speak into the wrist communicator that had recently been given to her. "Little Amazon here, the wonder has landed and is now proceeding inside," Donna reported, while making sure her continued bafflement at the odd code that they were currently using was kept out of her voice.

"Star shield here. I copy that," Captain America replied from his position on one of the upper floors inside the UN Building, which was providing him with a very good view of the gathered reporters and arriving representatives in front of him. Cap had been just as concerned that someone may react in a more extreme manner to the rumors that had sprung up after Aresia's plot had been foiled, and as a result, he had put together a small team that included Donna just to make sure that everything would go well. Out of all the heroes on this team, Cap was the only one who was part of the Justice League, because he felt that this was not really something that required the entire League's attention, and counting both himself and Donna, there were really only four heroes in total. Some would think that it was probably not a smart idea to have such a small team for this kind of mission, but that would only be before they knew the identity of the other two heroes that Cap had enlisted. "Heavy Artillery, what's your status?"

"I'm in position right above the building, I'm tapped in to every single security measure that the place has, and I've got scanners combing the entire perimeter, Cap. Even without our fourth man, I'm confident that we won't be able to miss anything with me on the job," the heavily armed, dark grey and black armored hero known as War Machine replied from where he was hovering up in the sky. To be honest, Cap had originally wanted to have help from either Rescue or Iron Man, the former because Donna and Diana were familiar with her and the latter because he was supposedly the most well-rounded member of Team Iron Man, and also because he still had yet to actually meet Tony Stark's bodyguard personally, but when Tony said that both Iron Man and Rescue were going to be unavailable for a while, Steve ended up taking what he could get when War Machine was offered in their place. Not that he was complaining; quite the opposite in fact. War Machine was proving to be a very efficient individual, right to the point that Steve was wondering if Iron Man's first partner was actually a soldier underneath that armor of his.

"Understood," Cap replied, shaking off his thoughts and ideas about who War Machine or any of the other members of Team Iron Man really were for the moment. Now was not the time to be pondering such unimportant things, because all that mattered was that he was here and willing to help them without any reason other than he simply wanted to. With that mental reminder, Steve turned his attention to the final member of the team. "Webs, are you ready…Webs?"

"Yeah, I'm here, and wondering why the best codename you guys could think of for me was 'Webs'," the tired-sounding voice of Spider-Man replied as he perched himself on the side of one of the buildings that surrounded the UN Building. "Seriously, did you guys think 'Arachnid' was too obvious, because I can tell you right now that a large number of people have made the mistake of thinking spiders were insects. I should know since I've had to correct a lot of them on more than one occasion."

 _"Spider-Man! Not really the best time to be starting a conversation,"_ Captain America snapped over the communicator in Spidey's watch.

"Sorry," Spider-Man immediately replied while he mentally reminded Cap that the super soldier should be thanking him for giving all of these different guys a communicator watch in the first place or in the case of War Machine the frequency that the watches used. He then leaped over to the nearest rooftop and broke into a small run while keeping his eyes on the area in front of him as he replied, "I'm moving around the area as much as I can without anyone really noticing and without using my web-shooters, but I'm not seeing anything that should be raising a red flag just yet, and my Spider-Sense isn't picking up on anything either."

 _"Understood, but don't relax your guard just yet. Remember that you're serving as our first line of defense in this since your Spider-Sense can warn you of danger,"_ Steve stated.

"Yeah, danger as it pertains to me, usually. I mean sure, it's alerted me to when other people were in trouble before, like that time when Electro first showed up and attacked Times Square, but I've never really actively used it for this kind of thing," Spider-Man reminded the super soldier.

 _"But you were still close by and able to sense that something was wrong, so there shouldn't be much difference here,"_ Cap pointed out. _"I know that you're not used to using your Spider-Sense in this way, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least try to. That's all I'm really asking you to do here, Spidey; I'm just asking you to at least try."_

"Okay Cap. I won't promise any miracles, but I can promise to give it my best," Peter replied, and with that he ended the call just before he had jumped over into a nearby construction site. If it was not for the fact that he had to keep moving between buildings to make sure he had eyes on everything, Spidey probably could have used the various shadows and hiding places this construction site provided to lay low and keep an eye on everything that was happening down below, but Cap's plan required him to keep moving between buildings around the perimeter, so he was going to do that. Of course, that did not mean that he could not take advantage of the cover places like this gave him so that he could get a better read on the situation down below. There was only so much he could really tell about a place if he was constantly moving around it without even a small pause here and there.

What Spider-Man did not know was that he was not the only one who thought to use the various hiding places and shadows in the construction site to hide his presence at one point or another, because someone was actually looking down on the UN Building from up in the rafters of that very same construction site, and their eyes had immediately narrowed a bit when Spidey had landed inside of it, their steely gaze now locked solely on the web-swinging hero of New York. The minute that Spider-Man had stopped for a second to take a good look at the scene on the ground, the figure taken the chance to act, and immediately glided down towards him, hoping to pounce him from behind. What they had not counted on was Spider-Man's trusted sixth sense alerting him to the attack, so they were completely unprepared when Spidey ducked down, avoiding the attack, grabbed them by their leg, and then threw them several feet back until they were practically standing right below where they had started from.

The figure did not stay down for very long, as they were soon flipping up onto their feet once again, but unfortunately, Spider-Man could not get a good look at the person because they were sticking close to the shadows, obviously hoping to throw them off. That did not mean he could not at least hear them, and when they did move to stand again, he could hear the light swishing and flapping of what he assumed to be either a cape or a long trench coat. He did not want to waste too much time with this person, so he immediately dropped into his usual fighting stance, and he expected his mystery attacker to do the same. This had left him unprepared for when said attacker actually dropped a smoke pellet, further concealing them from his sights and then disappeared into the shadows completely.

Now, most people would probably just keep their guard up for a couple of minutes or so before they finally relaxed thinking that the attacker had left the area or something along those lines, and if they did not do that, they would likely start freaking out because they were sure that the attacker was still there and likely to pop out and attack them at any time, but Spider-Man is not one of those people. He did not need to see his enemies to know that they were close by and he did not really need to see their attacks coming to be able to react fast enough, because his Spider-Sense did all of that for him on a regular basis. It was thanks to that ever-helpful sixth sense that Spidey was still standing ready knowing full well that this person was still close by and likely preparing to attack at any moment. Of course, Spidey probably should have called the others and let them know about this sudden surprise, but then again, whoever this person was, they were clearly only attacking him, and there was really no way to know for sure if they were here to attack Diana, so Peter figured it would probably be better to hold off on letting the others know just yet. First priority was to find out who this person was and why they were attacking him, a fact that was only reinforced when his Spider-Sense immediately began tingling to alert him of an incoming attack.

Reacting on instinct, Spider-Man immediately leaned to the side and spun around in order to avoid the very sharp objects that had just been thrown at him, and from the way that said objects were whistling through the wind, it was clear that they were probably some type of shuriken-like weapon. When he landed back on his feet again and got a quick look at one of the objects that had been used to attack him, his eyes widened a little behind his mask when he saw that they had a distinct bat shape, and that gave him something of an idea as to who was attacking him, but it was one that he did not want to think could be possible. Another alert from his Spider-Sense alerted him to another attack, and he was quickly spinning out of the way of more sharp objects that he now figured were probably more batarangs.

"Hey pal, I don't who you are, mostly because of the fact that you're staying out of sight, but I'm pretty sure Batman's not going to be too happy to hear that you've been using his stuff to attack people like this," Spider-Man quipped as he evaded another pair of batarangs. "And seriously, how many of these batty, batarang things do you have? More importantly, how many of them does Batman have? Seriously that guy doesn't ever seem to run out of them." Spidey's mini-rant was suddenly cut off when one of the most recently thrown batarangs suddenly exploded when it hit the wall behind him. Luckily, his Spider-Sense had alerted him and he was able to jump a reasonable distance away before it blew, but that did not mean that he did not at least feel a bit of the heat from the blast. "Oh my god! Did you seriously just try to blow me up?! Not cool dude!"

Before Spider-Man could say anymore, his comm. device suddenly beeped, alerting him to an incoming call, and he did not need to look at the watch to know that it was Captain America who was calling him. He was just starting to contemplate whether or not he should answer right now when his Spider-Sense alerted him to another incoming attack, and he could only assume it was more explosive batarangs, so he immediately sprung up into the air, and while he was in mid-air, he fired a web at one of the bat-shaped projectiles that had been thrown at him, and immediately snagged it without any trouble. "Let's see how you like a taste of your own medicine," Spider-Man cried out as he landed and then spun the web-ensnared batarang around so that it was moving on a return path to where it had come from.

When the batarang hit its target, it immediately lit up the area in an explosion, and Spider-Man was now able to get a better look at the person who just attacked him. When he did though, he could not help but gasp a little in shock at what he saw. While he could not see the person themselves that well, let alone their face, he was able to see just enough of them to make out their silhouette much better than before, and it was one that he recognized after seeing it so many times in some newspaper photos. There, gliding through the still-under-construction-room before him, was someone who was clearly dressed up to look like a bat, pointed-cape and bat-ear cowl and all. If this person wasn't Batman, then they sure seemed to have a very strong resemblance to the Dark Knight from where Spider-Man was standing. When the figure disappeared again, Spider-Man was about to go after him, when his watch beeped again right at the same time his Spider-Sense began tingling, alerting him to something else that was not anywhere near his location. The thing that his Spider-Sense had alerted him to was definitely a good enough reason for Spidey to answer his communicator this time.

 _"Spider-Man, what was that explosion over in the construction site,"_ Captain America asked, the muffled sounds of near-panicked cries in the background indicating that the super soldier was already on the ground, which was exactly where Spidey was hoping that Cap would be right then.

"Never mind that now! Someone's about to attack Wonder Woman down on the ground," Spider-Man revealed.

 _"What?! From where,"_ Cap demanded.

"I…I'm not sure. My Spider-Sense doesn't exactly give me full details on that kind of thing, and I'm a little-WHOA," Spider-Man cried out as he evaded a hook that was attached to grappling line, only to end up on the receiving end of a hard kick when the person who had fired said grapple suddenly came racing in as the line retracted, pulling them along with it. Spidey was rolling along the floor for a minute with the bat-clad figure before he finally managed to kick them off of him, sending them back into the shadows once more before he could get a better look.

 _"Spider-Man, what happened,"_ Captain America asked, now concerned for the young hero.

"I'm a little busy dealing with a surprise attacker," Spidey replied. "And to answer your earlier question, I think the guy who's about to attack…no wait, make that _guys_ who are about to attack Wonder Woman are somewhere on the main floor of the UN Building, or they're about to come inside of the building on that floor," Spidey reported.

The sound of windows crashing proved that the second guess was probably more accurate, and Spidey quickly glanced down to see a squad of arm mercenaries were starting to swarm into the building. They did not stay inside for long though, because the minute that Captain America encountered them, they were soon flying back out of the building, and it was only a matter of time before Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were both jumping into the fight as well, both having changed into their heroic attires at some point recently after the attack had happened. When Spidey heard the sound of helicopter blades from above, he immediately looked up to see three such aerial vehicles were swooping down around the building, but they did not stay airborne for long, because War Machine was quick to intercept them all and then divert them away from crash landing anywhere that would lead to any serious damage to either the city or the people below them.

Spider-Man did not get to watch much more of the action, because his new friend suddenly came back in for another round, and just like that, the web-head and the person who was possibly Batman were grappling in a fierce exchange of blows and fisticuffs. In a straight-up fight, Spidey probably would not have stood a chance against Batman, assuming this person was the Dark Knight, but this was not a straight up fight most of the time, as both combatants were constantly weaving around and ducking into shadows before trying some form of sneak attack on the other from an out-of-sight location. Of course, the fight was not made any easier for the web-head with Cap still talking to him via his communicator. _"Spider-Man, we could use a little backup over here. Think you could lend a hand."_

"Sorry Cap, but like I said earlier, I'm a little busy at the moment," Spider-Man replied as he blocked another strike from behind with his arm before flipping himself around to land a kick in the bat-like figure's back. Whether or not his hit did anything to the person, Spidey could not really tell, since his attacker did not let out even a small grunt of pain. "I'll do what I can to shake this guy, but until then, you're on your own."

 _"Understood. We'll do what we can for now, but you'll need to hurry,"_ Cap stated.

"Yeah, you got it," Spider-Man replied, and with that, the communication finally ended. With that distraction now out of the way, Spider-Man immediately opened up a stream of webs from his web-shooters, coating as much of the area as he could with his webs, until he was sure that there would be no way his bat-attacker would be able to move anywhere without ending up in the sticky, stronger than steel substance. Not long after that, Spidey heard someone let out a grunt of annoyance, letting him know that he had caught the sneaky attacker somewhere in the web. Where exactly they were now stuck, Spider-Man did not know, nor did he really care, because right now, he had more important things to worry about. "Sorry Bats, assuming that its really you who's decided to take a turn to the villain side of the road, but I'm done playing with you, cause right now, Cap and the rest of my new friends need me to help out and do my hero thing."

With that, Spider-Man immediately leapt out of the construction site and down to the ground where Cap and the two Amazons were still fighting the attacking mercenaries. To be more accurate, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were fighting the mercenary grunts while Cap seemed to be fighting the ring-leader of the group. The man Cap was fighting was decked out in an all-black suit, which was heavily padded, and a similarly colored helmet that covered his entire head, save for his eyes, and had a white skull painted on the face. The chest armor he wore also had a pair of crossbones on the center, and Spidey could also see that the guy had a set of large, weaponized gauntlets on his arms, along with several other items on his person that clearly allowed him to carry multiple different weapons. Spider-Man did not need to see all of this to figure out the mercenary's identity, since the white symbol on the man's chest and the skull helmet did all of that for him. This guy was the mercenary known as Crossbones, and from the way he was fighting against Cap, it looked like he had been hoping to pick a bone with the super soldier for a long time now.

Spider-Man did not really pay that much attention to the two leaders' fight from that point on, because he found that he had more important things to worry about at the moment, namely the grunts that were still swarming around him and the two Amazons a few feet away from him, but somehow, he had a feeling that with those two, Captain America, and War Machine on the job, the fight would not last very long.

* * *

Spider-Man had been right about the fight not lasting long, as a few minutes after Cap had taken down Crossbones, War Machine easily jumped a few feet into the air with a little help from his jet boots, and then dropped down right in the middle of the remaining mercenaries so that he could aim all of his weapons at them in a silent dare for them to try anything other than surrendering. Much to everyone's relief, the grunts made the smart choice and immediately surrendered upon seeing that their boss was down and that War Machine had them at gun-point while Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl looked like they could still go a few more rounds before they had really finished getting warmed up. With the mercenaries now defeated and being carted off into custody, Spider-Man took this opportunity to swing back up to the construction site in order to check on the Bat-clad nut that had attacked him earlier. Unfortunately, when Spider-Man had made it back, he had to let out a groan of disappointment when he saw that several of his webs had been cut and that the person who he had been fighting not too long ago was nowhere to be found.

Still, that did not mean that Spidey was not going to get some answers as to why someone who was most likely a teammate of Cap and Wonder Woman's had suddenly decided to come after him like this, and he immediately swung back down to where his fellow heroes had gathered together for a quick chat after giving a statement to the police. He had made it over just in time to hear the last bits of conversation between Captain America and War Machine, as the super soldier said, "Thanks again for your help, War Machine."

"My pleasure, Captain," War Machine replied with a salute.

While this action may have not seemed like much to the common man, something about did stick out enough for Cap to notice that it was not a playful salute like he would expect from either Spidey or Flash, and that had led him to ask, "You're actually a soldier under that armor, aren't you?"

It was really more of a statement than a question, but War Machine seemed to take it more as the latter when he answered. "Former Air Force, actually. I'd love to exchange war stories, but I'm afraid I've really gotta get going now. There's no telling what kind of mess Iron Man and Rescue have gotten themselves into without me around."

"Understood. Have a safe flight," Cap saluted in return, and with that, War Machine had blasted off into the skies on a flight back home. It was at this point that Cap and the two lovely ladies he was currently in the company of finally noticed Spider-Man's approach, and Cap did not hesitate to ask the first question that came to mind. "What happened, Spidey? I thought you would've called in the fact that you were attacked like that?"

"Well for starters, it was hard to say if the person who had attacked me was after Wonder Woman or just me. Plus, I doubt you guys would be very happy to hear about how one of your teammates decided to turn me into your friendly neighborhood Spider-Punching-Bag," Spider-Man casually replied, but the edge to his tone made it quite clear that he did not find either of those things to be as funny as he was making them sound to be in his opinion.

"Wait, what," Wonder Woman gasped, while Cap and Donna both just looked at Spidey with startled expressions.

"I was just moving through the construction site when your buddy Batman decided that it would be fun to attack me," Spider-Man repeated, only this time making himself a little more clear.

Cap did not seem to like hearing about this, but fortunately he managed to keep a calm head as he moved on to the obvious next question while Wonder Woman immediately reached for Justice League comm. link. "Are you sure it was Batman?"

"Well I didn't really get a good look at the guy since he was moving around so much and sticking to the shadows, but I definitely saw enough of him to know that the person I was fighting definitely dressed like Batman," Spider-Man replied before he reached into his belt and pulled out one of the batarangs that had been throw at him during the fight. He had figured that his story would be a little difficult to believe without proof, so he made sure to at least grab one or two of the signature weapons of the Dark Knight from the former battlefield before he came back. "This look familiar? A good number of them were thrown at me by the guy who jumped me, and a few of them even left some rather explosive results. Emphasis on 'explosive'."

Steve immediately took the batarang from Spider-Man's hands so that he could examine it better, and after a few seconds of not finding anything to indicate a forgery, he finally said, "It's definitely the real thing."

"But it couldn't be one of Batman's," Diana argued, joining back in the conversation. "He's been working in Gotham nonstop ever since the incident that Aresia had caused. I just checked in with J'onn, and he told me that Batman had been meeting with the Gotham City Police commissioner around the same time that Crossbones had attacked, and that he's now in the middle of pursuing a number of criminals that he suspects of having some sort of affiliation with his enemy Scarecrow."

"Well somebody dressed like Batman and using his stuff had attacked me earlier, and with the way that they were fighting, it seemed a little too much like the real thing, based off of my very limited knowledge of the man to be anyone other than him or someone that at least knows him," Spider-Man protested.

"Perhaps we should worry about these concerns later. We still don't know who sent Crossbones," Donna pointed out.

They all knew that the younger princess of Themyscira had a point. While Crossbones would likely have done this regardless, he had admitted that someone had paid him off, and they had no idea who it was. Given the circumstances surrounding the reason why this meeting was taking place, there was a strong chance that it was probably someone who believed the rumors about the Amazons that had been circulating lately, but they had no way to know for sure since Crossbones would not say. All he said every time anyone asked was that he was not inclined to give away his client's person information, or some other garbage along those lines. Cap was about to suggest a plan of action, when Spider-Man cut him off. "Don't sweat it you guys. I'll take care of tracking down the guy who hired Crossbones," the web-head stated.

"You sure, Spidey," Cap asked. He knew that Spider-Man could handle such a thing on his own, but he did not want to just leave everything on the young hero's shoulders like that.

"Like I said, don't worry about it. You guys stay here, do what you have to do, let Diana give her big speech, and then treat yourselves to some victory Big Belly Burger or Pizza, or whatever you guys normally do after a successful mission," Spider-Man insisted. "I know a guy or two that might know something about all this, and while I'm at it, I may even find some answers on the Bat-Jerk who decided to pull me into a game of Hit the Spider in the middle of an important matter."

The three looked between themselves for a minute before they finally agreed to Spidey's suggestion, and they then just watched as Spider-Man swung off, determined to get the answers he was looking for, both in regards to who had hired Crossbones and on exactly who it was that had tried to attack him earlier for reasons that he could not comprehend beyond the idea that someone up there just did not like him.

* * *

When it came to things like local crimes, the plots of the New York crime bosses, and other similar matters, Spider-Man would typically go to Blackie Gaxton, but this was not any of those things. While Blackie may have been of some help, when it came to mercenaries with a serious reputation like Crossbones, he was not very much help. When Spider-Man first asked why Blackie did not have such information, Blackie just said that he valued his life too much to get involved in that kind of crowd and left it at that. Thankfully, Blackie was not Spider-Man's only source of information when it came to fighting crime and solving mysteries in New York, and when it came to tracking down information on high-profile criminals or mercenaries, he knew of two people in particular that were always a big help to him. One of these two people was currently out of town after having left about three years ago or so, but thankfully, he knew that the second was in town right now, and that was why he was now swinging up to the part of town that typically accommodated the more well-off citizens of New York. To be more specific, the penthouse suite of one of the most impressive hotel buildings in the city, and which was pricey enough to not only be out of his budget, but was only affordable by the likes of Tony Stark or other individuals of similar financial backgrounds, regardless of how their wealth was acquired.

Upon arriving on the rather fancy porch of the penthouse, Spider-Man swiftly enters the large room and after glancing around for minute, he determines that the current resident is most likely there right now and jokingly announces, "Honey, I'm home!"

For a few minutes, no one answers him, but then a silky, slightly accented voice said, "Spider-Man. What an unexpected surprise. I don't suppose that this might be a social call for once, would it?"

Spider-Man's attention immediately turned to face the person that the voice belonged to, and he was immediately greeted with a silver-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned beauty of a woman dressed in a long, flowing white-almost silver robe that was made of a very impressive material that Spidey could only assume was either silk or some other very comfortable material. Her small smirk was only more noticeable by the silver lipstick she wore, and Spidey just knew that she was intentionally putting an extra sway in her hips as she walked across the room towards him in an attempt to get some sort of reaction out of him. The world at large knew her as Silver Sable, daughter of the former Nazi Hunter Ernst Sablinova, terrorist hunter, occasional mercenary, and on-again-off-again hero, but Spider-Man knew her as Silver Sablinova, a very lovely woman with a good heart, and who knew enough of the mercenary business to know what jobs to deny, and who was who in that branch of the world. At one point in the past, the two of them had considered pursuing a more serious relationship, but certain circumstances on both of their parts kept such ideas from bearing fruit, so they have since maintained a strong working relationship and a good friendship.

Of course, that did not stop Silver from occasionally attempting some playful flirting with him just for the fun of seeing how he would react, but in the recent year or so, his reactions were not what they once were. At least, not since a certain incident that only she and the rest of Spider-Man's closest friends and allies knew about it. This time was no different, but that was mostly because Spider-Man had come here for work, not for her attempts at teasing him. "Sorry Silver, but I'm afraid that I'm making a business call today," Spider-Man immediately told her, his voice not wavering even in the slightest.

Sable was a bit disappointed by the fact that he was still so focused on his work as a hero, as she could still recall the days when he would swing by just to talk with her and have a few friendly discussions like real friends would, but she was also able to hear the slight urgency in his voice that told her that whatever Spider-Man needed help with, it was very serious, so she dropped all attempts at teasing right then and there and seated herself on the couch with her legs crossed before gesturing for the web-head to take a seat as well. "And just what does New York's friendly neighborhood hero require of me this time? I certainly hope it's not advice on how to woo the likes of a certain wonder of a woman," Sable asked, adding the joke in at the end just to keep the mood a little light.

Peter could not help but smirk a little under his mask, because he knew full well that her sense of humor was a result of her knowing him for so long, a fact that she often reminded him of whenever he called her out on it. "I'm looking for information on Crossbones," Spider-Man said as he sat back in the armchair that he had seated himself in.

"I'm guessing that this has to do with the scene he caused down at the UN Building, right," Sable asked, just to make sure that she understood correctly.

"Wow, looks they're not kidding when they say that news travels fast. Then again, I chalk that up to the fact that gossip has been said to spread like wildfire," Spider-Man quipped, showing Sable that a little bit of that sense of humor she had always associated him with before that incident was still around. That humor quickly vanished again when Spidey picked up where they left off. "Crossbones was stopped, but he admitted that someone had hired him to make that hit. I'm trying to find out who, and I figured you might have an idea on that."

Silver was quiet for a few minutes before she glanced away and said, "I'm sorry, Spider, but I can't help you."

"What," Spider-Man exclaimed with a small edge to his tone. "Silver, someone hired Crossbones to attack one of my friends, and if you know something about this, I need to know what it is, now."

"Peter, do you really think if I knew something I wouldn't tell you," Silver asked, addressing Spider-Man by his real name to emphasize her point. She had discovered Spider-Man's secret identity a few years prior after the two of them were caught in a very deadly situation that they were not entirely sure they would survive, but that is another story. "If I did know something, I would tell you, but I'm afraid that I really don't know all that much about Crossbones' current, or should I say now-former boss. Whoever he is, he's kept to the shadows, but he's also been said to be well-financed enough to be able to hire men like Rumlow without any trouble. No one really knows what his actual motives are for the jobs he has people do for him, but some people have said that he likely just wants to watch the world burn."

Spider-Man seemed to relax a little more at that explanation, even though it did not help him at all. If what Silver had revealed was true, then tracking down the person that had hired Crossbones was going to be harder than he thought. Still, there had to be something there that could be of some help, because after being Spider-Man for a little over ten years now, Peter knew that even the smallest of clues could lead to the answers one was looking for. "Is there anything that could help to identify him, like a common meeting place or a way of contacting him?"

"I'm afraid it's impossible to contact this person, whoever they are. He's one of those people that finds you, and never the other way around. As for meeting places…well, there is one common theme to them, but I don't think you'll like hearing about it," Silver admitted, and despite the fact that she had turned away from him, Spider-Man could still see the worry and small hint of fear that were in her eyes.

"Silver, whatever it is, if it could help, then I need to know so I can stop this guy," Peter said in a soothing voice, while he placed a hand on top of hers in a reassuring manner.

Sable did not want to answer right away, but she eventually sighed in defeat and revealed the information that she did not want to tell Peter. "The places that he meets people at are usually thought to be random, but a good majority of them do have one thing in common. They have all been former bases or just had some connection to an old enemy of yours. One who had a thing for pointed ears, pumpkin bombs, and the color green."

Silver immediately felt Peter's hand tense a little against her own, and when she looked back to him, she could see that there was a slight tremor in his stance that indicated he was on the verge of shaking a little, but whether it was in anger or sadness, she could not really tell. She blamed that on the fact that his mask hid Peter's face so well. After a minute or so, he seemed to regain his composure and stood up so that he could leave, and in that moment, Silver knew that he had dropped all pieces of Peter Parker, the optimistic and usually joyful young man, and had completely replaced him with Spider-Man, a determined hero that would not let anyone get hurt, no matter what it cost him.

"Thanks for the information Silver. You've been a big help," Spider-Man said in an even tone, proving Silver's suspicions just like that, and that was something that scared her a little.

"Peter, wait," Silver called out, just as Spidey was about to sling out a web. "I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I'm worried about you, and so are Mary Jane and Doctor Connors, and if she were here right now to see you, I'm sure Felicia would be worried too. When was the last time you ever took some time to really just live outside of that Spider-suit, aside from when you and MJ had dated?"

"I don't really see how that matters right now," Peter replied evenly, but his tone clearly carried a slight warning to it that advised against continuing this conversation.

"It does matter. I know at one point after what had happened, you thought that you should stop being Spider-Man, but now it seems like you're trying to stop being Peter Parker. More than that, you're denying yourself a chance to be happy with someone again," Silver argued, ignoring the warning completely.

"Drop it, Silver," Peter warned, now making it much more clear that he was doing that. "I'm just doing what I do best, and living up to the great responsibility that comes with my great power."

"But if you let it consume you, then what's the point," Silver tried to reason. "Peter, you need to live your own life sometimes, and not just when it's necessary like for your job with Curt." Seeing that he did not appear to be listening anymore, Sable immediately walked over to him, and spun him around so that he was facing her. Before Peter could say anything, he suddenly found his mask moved up so that his lower face was visible, and his lips were suddenly assaulted by Silver Sable's as she planted a strong kiss on them.

Such a gesture was not entirely unexpected on Peter's part, as they had kissed before a few years ago back when they were thinking about taking their relationship a little further than that of friendship, but right now, it was most certainly unwelcome to him, which was why he eventually managed to push her back. "What the hell was that," Peter demanded as he pulled his mask back down.

"Consider it a reminder that you're not alone, and that there are people who care about you," Silver started. The next thing he knew, he saw a hint of red adorning her cheeks before she finished, "And also…a bit of a confession that my feelings for you haven't changed."

Spider-Man did not really know what to say. He had a feeling that Silver still felt that way, but right now, he was still not entirely sure about pursuing a relationship with someone, and that was without considering the fact that any serious relationship with Silver was going to be a challenge that neither one of them were sure that they could weather. "I'm sorry, Silver. I appreciate you telling me that, but right now…I just…"

"What? You can't think about being with me, or with anyone at all? That isn't something you really need to think about. Some things you just need to let happen. Can you really say that you don't still feel something between us," Silver asked.

If he was being honest, Peter did still hold strong feelings for Silver Sable, but they were not as strong as they once were, and experience had long since proven to him a relationship with her was more than likely impossible. More than that though, there was still one particular thing holding him back from pursuing something with her or anyone right now: a wound that he was not sure would ever truly heal no matter how much time had passed. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that, and you know it, Silver."

"Can't or won't? It's not the same thing in this instance, Peter, and you know it, don't you," Silver said, and while it may have sounded like a question, the way she said it made it seem like it had not been.

Spider-Man did not give any response to that beyond sparing her a quick look and then swinging away without another word, much to Silver's disappointment. She knew that Peter was trying to be strong, but right now, he needed help more than he was willing to admit, and she could only hope that someone would eventually come into his life to give him the help he needed. What neither she nor Spider-Man knew, was that someone had spotted the web-head when he left her penthouse and was now following him from the shadows. Someone who had a very bat-like appearance.

* * *

Hearing that someone was using some of Green Goblins old hideouts again definitely did not bring back good memories for Spidey, but he was able to put all negative feelings on the matter aside and focus on work for the moment, and after a quick call to the Spider-Parlor, where MJ was already ready and waiting for the call, Peter's redheaded friend had managed to determine which of the various locations tied to the Green Goblin was the most likely meeting point for Crossbones and his boss. As it turned out, it was actually an old Oscorp warehouse where the original Goblin had stored a vast amount of his weapons and tools, in a part of the city that some had come to affectionately nickname the Goblin-Zone. It was not to honor Green Goblin or anything like that, but it was really more of a reference to how the area was right on the edge between Hell's Kitchen and the rest of New York, and yet it seemed to be a territory that seeped out into both areas due to the fact that so much of the area seemed to be under Green Goblin's control when he was still around.

Peter shook out all the memories he had of those days, especially in the case of those last few days, and immediately started staking out the warehouse to see if he could find some indication that would lead him to Crossbones' client or that said client might come back here. After searching for a few minutes, Spidey was not able to find anything outside and figured that he might have better luck inside the warehouse, but just as he was about to go in, his Spider-Sense started tingling, and he immediately jumped out of the way as someone or something came flying in to attack him once again. When he turned to face the person that had just tried to attack him, he immediately caught sight of a bat-like shape in the shadows, indicating that this person was the same one he had met earlier.

"Well, looks like this is my lucky day. I go hunting for Crossbones' last client, and I run into you along the way, Bats. You may have gotten the drop on me before, but this time, I'm ready for you," Spidey quipped as he immediately lunged forward in an attempt to catch the bat-clad individual off-guard with his change of tactics.

It seemed that he was successful in doing so, because the figure had clearly been expecting Spidey to drop into a fighting stance as a way of being cautious like last time, so they just barely managed to jump clear before Spidey had managed to tackle them. What the figure was not expecting was for Spider-Man to fire a pair of web-lines at them, which he then used to pull him in so that he could land a pair of spin kicks to his front, knocking him to the ground where Spider-Man soon had his mystery man pinned. In the process of his attack though, Spider-Man noticed that the figure did let out a grunt of pain when he kicked him, and that said grunt sounded a little too feminine for a man, but it was not until after he had them pinned down that he finally realized that the person who had attacked him just now, and probably before as well, may have been a bat, but they were definitely not a man.

There, pinned to the floor beneath Spider-Man, was the black and yellow clad, red haired form of Batgirl, and despite the fact that she was pinned down, she was still glaring up at the web-head with her blue eyes shining with a determination that made it seem like she was not beaten yet. "Don't think a color change is going to mean anything, Black Spider. Once I've got you down, I'll be able to pull every last bit of evidence that you were trying to destroy so you can be locked away for good," Batgirl snarled.

"Wait, what," Spider-Man asked in confusion, but while he may have relaxed his hold a little, Batgirl was still unable to get up. "Okay, you attack me for no reason, throw a bunch of those batty batarangs at me, try to _blow me up_ in a _construction site_ , and now you're getting me mixed up with hack wannabe assassin, who I fully intend to have words with about how he has been trying to steal my shtick? I thought you bats were supposed to be smart."

Batgirl's glare had dropped for a minute at the first part of Spider-Man's mini-rant, but immediately return in full with a new intensity at that last sentence. "Excuse you? You're the one who didn't even think to say something in the first place and just went ahead with trying to fight me."

"Well what was I supposed to do with you doing that whole ninja vanish and sneak attack routine of yours? More to the point, _you_ attacked _me_ without rhyme or reason, and never once said anything about why you were doing so in the first place," Spider-Man pointed out.

This time Batgirl's glare dropped completely and became replaced with a more sheepish expression. "Okay that might have been a slight oversight on my part," the redhead admitted.

"Wow, can you say understatement," Spider-Man quipped in retort as he finally got up off of the Gothamite, allowing her to stand up again. "You really should've figured out that I'm Spider-Man and not that wannabe Black Spider long before now, and without me having to spell it out for you. What're you even doing in New York anyway?"

Batgirl bristled a little at his latest insult to her intelligence, but let it slide so she could answer his question as calmly as possible. "For starters, Batman thought it might help if Cap had a little backup in protecting Wonder Woman, which would've gone much more smoothly if you hadn't tied me up in that slime of yours."

"Which I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't insisted on playing Hit-the-Spider in the first place," Spider-Man interrupted.

"And also because I'm following up on a case that Batman entrusted me with, which just so happens to tie in with the one you're clearly following," Batgirl finished with a slight edge in her tone, due to the web-head's interruption.

Hearing her mention that she was working on a case that tied into his investigation earned the female member of the Bat-Clan Spidey's full attention, but there was still something off about that little story. "Just what does this case your following up on have to do with my investigation into Crossbones' last client?"

"Let's just say that it involves a smuggling operation that Cap was part of a few months back and leave it at that," Batgirl said shortly.

"Fine, well then how about this: you go take care of your case, leave the mystery of the man who hired Crossbones to me, and then go back to Gotham for a victory make-out session with Batman or Nightwing," Spider-Man said as he knelt in front of the air vent that led into the warehouse.

Now Batgirl was more than a little upset, but it was mostly due to that last comment that Spider-Man had made. "First off, I do _not_ have that kind of relationship with Batman or Nightwing. We're just _partners_. Second, I just told you that Crossbones and his last employer have connections to my case, so I'm not going anywhere until I get what I'm looking for."

Spider-Man could not help but let out a growl of frustration in response before he turned to face Batgirl and look her straight in the eye as he spoke. "Fine, but let's get a few things straight here, Batgirl. This is _not_ Gotham City, and it's definitely not your city either. New York is my territory, and while I may not be as stiff about it as your boss, I still prefer to not have non-local heroes coming in thinking that they can act how they normally do, so to put it more simply, we do things my way. Got it," Spider-Man grounded out.

Batgirl met Spider-Man's gaze with an even one of her own, but whether or not he was glaring at her like she currently was him, she could not tell you because of his mask. Though if she were to judge by the tone of his voice, she would say that he probably was. Another thing that she could not help but note was that unlike Batman, Spider-Man did not tower over her. He was certainly taller than her, but it was probably only by a few inches minimum, so she had no trouble meeting his gaze as she replied, "Perfectly, but only if it doesn't get in my way."

Spider-Man would have retorted, but he knew there was not any time for that, so he simply just pulled the grate open and started leading the way into the warehouse as quietly as possible. Just because the place was abandoned by both Oscorp and the Goblin, did not mean that there was not still a chance that someone could still be in there. As they were going, Spidey glanced over his shoulder to see Batgirl following close behind him, and he asked, "Your boss has information on pretty much every known criminal in the world, right? Including the ones he's never even encounter himself?"

"He has files and a way to access information that he doesn't have a file on, yeah," Batgirl replied, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"And have you seen all of that info," Spidey continued.

"Where are you going with this," Batgirl questioned. She was not really dodging the question, but she had no intention of telling the web-swinger anything that he did not need to know.

Spider-Man was quiet for a few moments before he replied with another question of his own. "How much do you know about the Green Goblin?"

Batgirl was not sure how to respond to that, but that was mostly due to the fact that she had picked up something of an edge to Spider-Man's voice when he asked that question. Most people would probably have thought it was because Spidey was still a bit upset with her, which was mostly likely true as well, but Batgirl had heard that particular edge before very many times in the past. It was the same kind of edge she would sometimes hear Batman using whenever he discussed matters involving either the Joker or Ra's Al Ghul. Shaking the matter from her thoughts for a moment, Batgirl eventually managed to reply as calmly as she could, "He was a criminal mastermind that nearly took over New York's criminal underworld after you and Daredevil first exposed Wilson Fisk as the Kingpin of Crime. He disappeared for a brief period shortly after you had first defeated him, only to surface again until his supposed death after your final encounter with him. No one was ever able to determine his real identity, but there were a few suspicions that he was someone with deep connections into Oscorp, despite the fact that most of his tech was actually stolen from Oscorp."

Spider-Man gave no indication of whether or not she was correct beyond a small nod in response, until they finally reached the grate that would drop them into the middle of the warehouse. "You'd be surprised how accurate those suspicions are, especially since this warehouse was one of the Goblin's old hideouts and secret caches of weapons and tech back in the days of his final play. In point of fact, a lot of buildings that Oscorp owned even in the slightest bit were actually used by Green Goblin for one reason or another."

"You sound like you actually knew who the Goblin really was," Batgirl commented. While she had not meant it as anything serious, Spider-Man's silence made her think that her observation was not that far off. "You did, didn't you? You know who the Green Goblin really is," she gasped in shock. "Why keep it to yourself though? Why didn't you ever tell the authorities."

"I've told you already, this isn't Gotham. The police don't just take the word of a costumed vigilante like GCPD does without some real hard evidence, and even then, they can't just take that at face-value," Spider-Man explained, a little more harshly than he had really intended to, if he was being honest. His tone then softened and grew more somber as he added, "Besides, it doesn't really matter now. He died years ago, during our last face-off, actually."

Batgirl did not know what to say to that, because from the sound of things, it almost seemed like Spider-Man was upset by the fact that one of his enemies was dead. She knew that some heroes tended to define themselves in certain ways when it came to their villains, but somehow, this did not seem like that. "You didn't…kill him, did you," Batgirl asked.

"That's none of your business, and it's really not anyone else's either. Not anymore, so just drop it. I'm only telling you all of this so you can at least have an idea on what to expect when we get in there. There's a chance there's some Goblin tech and weapons that were never cleared out when the police had come in here to clear them out," Spider-Man had practically snapped, making Batgirl think that she was talking with her mentor for a moment.

Neither one of them said anything after that, and instead just dropped down into the otherwise empty warehouse. Looking around for a few minutes yielded no results to their search efforts, and it certainly did nothing to improve their attitudes towards each other, seeing as they would both throw the other a small glare when they thought the other person was not looking. Clearly they were both still sore about their interactions with one another up until now, but that did not stop Spider-Man from bounding over to Batgirl when his Spider-Sense suddenly started tingling.

"Hey, what're you…" Batgirl started to say when she suddenly found herself scooped up into one of Spidey's arms as he pulled them both up to the ceiling and then slapped one hand over her mouth once they were in the rafters.

"Shush! Someone's coming in, and it might be Crossbones' boss," Spider-Man whispered.

Batgirl immediately pushed Spider-Man's hand off her mouth and was about to ask how he could possibly know that when a group of thugs walked right into the building not two seconds later. The redhead was curious as to how Spidey knew that these people were coming, but right now, she was more interested in what was unfolding before them. Entering from one side of the warehouse was clearly a group of Crossbones' remaining goons, while on the other side was a group that were decked out in what looked like grey and black body armor and helmets that seemed to have pointed ears on the sides. Of course, it was the leader of the second group that really had her attention, but mostly because of how bizarre looking he was, and if Batgirl thought someone looked strange, that should more than likely tell you something.

The man in question was bigger than the average person, but not by to the extent of someone like Superman or Martian Manhunter could be considered, though he was pretty close to that, and he seemed to have pale-green skin, while his hair stood up straight and his ears were pointed, much like that of either an elf's or a goblin's, and from what Batgirl could tell, his fingers seemed more like claws than they did regular fingers. His outfit consisted of what looked like a set of armor that covered his entire body save for his head, which was colored dark green with some hints of grey and black lining it, while a pair of black gloves with silver fingertips adorned his hands, and black boots were on his feet. Looking at this strange person's face, Batgirl could not help but feel like she should recognize this person, but with the way his face seemed so disfigured and twisted into this goblin-like visage, she really could not tell who he was for the life of her. When she turned to her current companion to see if he knew this leading figure, she had to pause for a minute upon seeing that his hands were tightly clenched into fists and were shaking as much as he was in anger, telling her that Spider-Man most likely did recognize this person and it was not for a good reason.

Her attention was brought back to the group below them when the goons that worked for Crossbones spoke up. "Look, I know that the boss didn't deliver in his promise to kill Wonder Bitch, but what do you expect us to do? In case you hadn't noticed, she's clearly got help," the goon said. "Captain America was there, along with War Machine, Spider-Man, and Wonder Girl. The whole thing was a total bust and…"

"It went exactly as I had intended it to," the leader of the other group suddenly said in a deep, yet still surprisingly high-pitched voice.

"What," the goon asked, sounding both surprised and a bit angry at what it sounded like this person was implying.

"I didn't want you to kill Wonder Woman. I'll admit that would've made a great bonus, I just wanted you and your boss to get people's attention. Sow some seeds chaos. Prove my point that no matter who they are, they're not safe, and that heroes can't do anything to stop things like that from happening until after they've happened," the goblin-looking man explained with a light snarl to his voice and a mild cackle that would probably have made Joker a little jealous.

"So…you set us up so our boss would get arrested," Crossbones' goon asked.

The goblin-looking man actually did let out a small laugh at this question before he said, "Well, like I said, I was proving a point, and having the mighty Crossbones get arrested does help that a little. Besides, look at this way: you'll be putting your payment to good use. You can use it to pay for his bail."

That turned out to be the last straw for Crossbones' men, and they immediately pulled out their guns as the leader said, "Keep your damn money. Crossbones will be happier with the fact that we killed the bastard who double-crossed him."

"Oooh…very poor decision on your part," the goblin-man stated, and he simply raised one hand to signal his own men to draw their very impressive looking weapons and start firing. It did not stop there though, as a second later, the windows were smashed in as what looked like a glider flew in and around the room before the goblin-looking man jumped up in an impressive back-flip, landed right on top of the glider, and was soon throwing around explosives at anything that was not on his side with a mad cackle

It was at this point that a full-on shoot-out/brawl had broken out, and any sensible hero in their right mind would be able to tell you that if someone did act fast, this fight would likely spread out into the streets where some innocent civilian would get hurt, and Batgirl was more than prepared to do just that, regardless of whatever risks there might have been. At least she was until she heard Spider-Man say something that made her pause. "How…how is it possible that he's…How could that son of a bitch still be alive," Spider-Man whispered in a low, dangerous tone of voice.

Now Batgirl did not know much about Spider-Man other than what she had learned from both this little encounter so far and what she had read in the files Batman kept on the Bat-Computer, but she did know enough to know that hearing the wall-crawler say something like that was definitely not something that would be considered normal for him. She was about to try and say something to him, but Spider-Man had already jumped down into the fray by the time she had even opened her mouth. As usual, Spider-Man's arrival into the fight was met with the criminals shouting his name in shock, but unlike the goons, the goblin-like man just grinned, showing the shark teeth in his mouth when he did and let out a loud cackle.

"Well, I was wondering when you would finally catch on to my return, Spider-Man," the goblin-man stated.

"Oh I'm about to catch a lot more than that, Goblin," Spider-Man snarled before he fired a web-line that immediately snagged onto the glider that the madman was riding, not knowing that Batgirl was now staring in shock at what Spider-Man just said. "I don't know how you're still alive, but I'm gonna make sure that you wished you were dead by the time I'm done."

"Doth my ears deceive me? The _friendly_ neighborhood Spider-Man is actually out-right threatening me with a promise of violence? And here I thought you wouldn't have lost your wit and sense of humor in my absence," Goblin mocked as he pointed one of his fingers at Spider-Man and fired off a beam of energy from them.

Spider-Man easily twisted and spun through the air to avoid the blasts, but he was unable to dodge the explosive that detonated right next him after Goblin had thrown it at him. He then tumbled across the floor for a minute before rolling back up into a crouching position and firing another web to snag one of Goblin's most recently thrown explosives. The minute that his webbing had the pumpkin bomb in its adhesive grasp, Spider-Man instantly spun it around so that it would be sent back to the person that thrown it in the first place, and it soon exploded once it had made contact with the flying madman. Batgirl could not help but gasp in horror at the brutality that she had just witnessed from Spider-Man, but that horror was quickly dissipated when Goblin came spinning out of the smoke and landed on his glider once it had positioned itself underneath him once again.

"Well someone's certainly much more aggressive than he used to be," Goblin continued to mock, almost as if he was encouraging Spider-Man to continue his efforts to try and kill him. Not that he really had to try, because Spidey was quickly up in the air and swinging over to engage Goblin up close once more, and he did not seem to be holding back at all.

Batgirl would have just sat there and continued watching, but the sound of an explosion and gunfire below her served as a quick reminder that Goblin was not the only problem at the moment. There was still a pair of goon squads battling it out with each other, and who would likely end up dragging the fight into the streets if she did not do something quick. Thinking quickly, Batgirl immediately pulled a few smoke pellets from her utility belt and threw the small spheres down onto the floor below, creating a large smokescreen the minute that they had struck the ground. When the rain of gunfire had come to a complete halt and was replaced by the sounds of goons coughing, Batgirl quickly glided down from her perch and into the middle of the groups so that she could dispatch as many of them as possible while the smoke was still clouding their vision. By the time that the room was clear of smoke, Batgirl had subdued and tied up at least half of the goons in the room, with their weapons either discarded or dismantled by the caped crusader, and when the remaining thugs saw her, they all paused in shock at the sight.

"What? You fellas never seen a female superhero before," Batgirl quipped with a small smirk as she ran over to them and immediately knocked the closest thug out with a hard hit to his head, which was soon followed up by a spin-kick into the next closest thug's chest. Said kick had sent the thug flying into the crate that was situated behind him, and the minute his head had struck said crate, he was out cold as well.

That little display had snapped the rest of the goons out of their daze, and they were soon either running up for a chance to either kill Batgirl or just reloading their guns before attempting to shoot at her. While a few bullets managed to graze her a little, Batgirl was not injured by the shots thanks to the fact that her suit was made of a very flexible and durable body armor that Batman had provided her with after he officially welcomed her into the fold, and she was soon able to disarm the shooters with a series of batarangs. More to the point, dealing with the other thugs was a simple matter of incredible acrobatics and skill that Batgirl had spent years training and improving on, and the fact that she had more flexibility than the thugs that were trying to kill her was also a factor that played into her favor, so it was no surprise that she had practically cleared the room of about half of the remaining thugs so quickly.

Since he was still grappling with Spider-Man, Goblin had not noticed the newest arrival to the party right away, but when he did, he was not the least bit bothered by it. Instead, he just cackled a little more before he remarked, "So the spider's decided to call on one of the bats for help, has he? I wonder if she knows about what happened to the last girl that had ended up in the middle of our business."

Something in Spider-Man had snapped at that point, and the next hit he threw at Goblin not only threw the madman off his glider, but also made an impressive dent in one of the building supports as well. Before Goblin could rise again, he found himself being pressed back into the dented support by Spider-Man's arm, and the web-swinger just continued to press said appendage against his enemy's throat as he snarled, "Leave her out of it. This is between you and me."

"You mean like it was years ago? And yet, there was nothing you could do to keep poor little Gwen from…" Goblin started to say, only to find himself choking a little more when the pressure against his throat suddenly increased.

"Shut up! You don't get to say her name," Spider-Man practically roared in anger while he raised his free hand up into a fist, almost as if he were ready to send it through the man's skull. The minute that Goblin had said that particular name, everything else around him was blocked out, including Mary Jane's voice as it shouted in his ear, pleading for him to stop what he was doing, because right then, nothing else mattered to Spider-Man but making the madman in front of him pay for what he had done.

Thankfully, something finally managed to get through to him before he did anything he could regret, and that something was Batgirl grabbing his arm after she finished dealing with the last of the thugs and run over to them in an effort to stop what was happening. "Spider-Man, no! Don't let him get to you," Batgirl reasoned. Her tone may have been harsh, but her words were definitely not spoken with any anger.

At that point, Spider-Man finally realized what he was doing, and he relaxed a little bit, allowing Goblin to drop to the floor, panting a bit as he tried to get his breath back, while the web-head just slowly stepped back and looked at his hands, not believing what he had just nearly done, while Batgirl stood by watching him in concern. All contemplation ended though when Goblin suddenly shot one of his finger beams into Batgirl's leg, making her stumble a little and drawing Spider-Man over to her when she cried out, more due to surprise than actual pain. Goblin used this little distraction to return back to his glider and then release a number of bombs into the room around him as he lifted up into the air.

"Your choice, Spider-Man. Save yourself, your new girlfriend, and as many of these pathetic fools as you can, or stop me. Then again, I think we both know what you'll choose to do," Goblin cackled before he blasted out of the building.

Spider-Man just cursed under his breath at the fact that Goblin was right, and he immediately pulled Batgirl into his grasp before firing a web-line out through the broken window that Goblin's glider had come in through, pulling them both to safety. Batgirl had tried to insist that she was fine and able to save herself, but Spider-Man was either to angry to hear her or just did not listen, and he immediately dropped her unceremoniously on the rooftop that they had landed once they were outside before he turned to go back for the thugs that were still there. Unfortunately, he never made even made it off the roof, because seconds after he had turned around, the building went up in a glorious blaze of fire and explosions, taking everyone and everything that was still inside with it.

Spider-Man just stared at where the building had previously been before lowering his head in shame, both at the fact that he had allowed Goblin to play him and that he had failed to save any of those other men before it was too late. Batgirl wanted to say something to him, but somehow, she just could not find the words to do so. Perhaps it was because she could feel the sadness radiating off of him, or perhaps it was because she really did not know what to say about what had happened. Either way, the redheaded hero from Gotham ended up unable to do anything other than lower her head in sadness like Spider-Man had.

* * *

A few hours later, the two had long since left the warehouse and were now standing on the rooftop of one of the taller buildings in New York, making them invisible to anyone who was not flying directly overhead and low enough to see them, and despite the success they may have gained, there was no denying that there was just as much failure in there as well. At the same time though, Batgirl was clearly frustrated by what had happened and by the fact that a wanted supervillain who was supposed to be dead had actually turned out to be alive without anyone even knowing, including Batman apparently, but her frustration over this fact was nothing in comparison to Spider-Man's, and she did not need to be able to see his face to know this, because it showed in his body language. Of course, that just meant that all they needed was for Spider-Man to tell her who the Goblin really was, and then they could get the information to the police so that they could help them track down the criminal.

It seemed like a sound plan to Batgirl, but before she could give it any voice, Spider-Man cut her off with a plan of his own, one that definitely did not sit right with her. "We're done here. Whatever case your chasing after, it's over now," Spider-Man stated in a hard voice that likely could have rivaled Batman's commanding tone.

"Excuse me," Batgirl replied, hardly believing this guy had the nerve to tell her something like that. "In case you haven't noticed, Green Goblin is still out there planning something. We have to let Captain America or the NYPD know about this so that they…"

"What part of this isn't Gotham don't you get," Spider-Man rhetorically demanded. "We can't just go to the police saying 'Hey guess what? The guy who put out the hit on Wonder Woman is Green Goblin back from the dead! Mind helping us catch him?' Not only will they think we're crazy, they'll probably just try to lock us up instead once they find out we were at that warehouse that just blew up!"

"That wasn't our fault! Did you ever think that maybe if you would just explain what happened they wouldn't try to blame everything on you," Batgirl angrily asked.

"They won't accept any statement unless I reveal who I am, and unless you've recently told the world who you are under that cowl, I doubt they'd really accept your statement as easily as the GCPD does," Spider-Man stated. "Need I remind you that I said you could only tag along if you followed my lead? Well guess what? My lead is now for you to drop this, leave Goblin to me, and go back to Gotham."

"I also remember telling you that I would only follow your lead if it didn't get in my way, and this is doing that," Batgirl pointed out, but Spider-Man just turned away from her as though he were planning to leave. "Do you really think you can stop him on your own? I can help."

"No you can't. You'd just be in the way. The only way for me to stop Goblin is if I face him alone, otherwise someone will get hurt," Spider-Man replied without facing her.

"Bull. Why don't you just admit that you're too afraid of someone getting hurt? Newsflash, Web-Head: I've faced way worse than Green Goblin back in Gotham," Batgirl retorted.

"Well unless Joker and Harley Quinn have recently done something as terrible as him, you'll excuse me if I have a hard time believing that," Spider-Man retorted as he continued walking away.

His departure eventually came to a halt when Batgirl finally ran around to stand in his path, leveling the most heated glare she had ever given to anyone who was on the same side as her. "Just what is it about Goblin that makes you go from the witty, smart-mouthed hero that everyone is always saying you are into some controlling nutcase that could rival Batman," Batgirl demanded.

Spider-Man was silent for a minute, making Batgirl think that she had really made him a lot more mad than he already was, until he finally replied in a voice that was just barely above a whisper, "Think about who your boss' worst enemy is, assuming that isn't the Joker, but rather the absolute worst enemy he's ever faced, and then you'll have at least a small idea of what Goblin is to me." That put Batgirl into a stunned silence for a moment, having not expected that at all, but she was snapped out of it again when Spidey next spoke. "I'll say it again; we're done here, and your case is over. Go home and leave Goblin to me."

"No. I'm just dropping this, and you can't make me," Batgirl retorted in a continued effort to defy the web-head.

"Well, maybe I can't make you leave, but I can make sure that you don't follow me while I keep working. Especially since I just webbed your feet to the ground," Spider-Man replied with a bit of his usual whimsical nature coming out for a moment.

"What," Batgirl exclaimed as she tried to take a step in any direction, only to find her efforts in doing so completely useless, and upon looking down to her feet, she saw that Spider-Man had indeed used his trademarked webbing to make sure that she was stuck to the rooftop and unable to take a step in any direction.

Batgirl then turned her gaze back on Spider-Man, but she found whatever heated remark she had vanishing a little when she noticed that Spidey had narrowed the distance between them so that he was right in her face, leaving him the chance to give her one more warning. "Now for the last time, either go back to Gotham willingly, leave the Green Goblin to me, or I will send you back to Batman my way."

"How? By webbing me to the side of a jet," Batgirl asked in some small attempt of showing some bravery in the face of this rather intimidating side of the web-head.

"Only if I'm in a good mood, and you're really, _really_ lucky," Spider-Man replied, and with that, he instantly aimed his web-shooter at the nearest building, and jumped off the roof to start swinging away.

"Hey! HEY! You can't just leave me here like this! Spider-Man? SPIDER-MAN," Batgirl shouted, but Spider-Man did not even make the slightest indication of turning back to free her from his webs, so she ended up just shouting his name to the sky as a curse until he was finally out of sight.

* * *

"You didn't have to go and do that to her, you know," Mary Jane scolded Peter for what seemed like the hundredth time to him since he had returned to the Spider-Parlor.

"Will you please stop saying that? You're starting to make it sound like I had left her there tied up in my webs and half-naked," Peter groaned while he finished reloading his web-shooters with a full cartridge of freshly made web-fluid. "Besides, you know why I did that."

"Yeah, because you're being a total tool," Mary Jane smartly replied as she tapped away at her keyboard, the screens all lit up with various displays that whisked this way and that across her monitors. Upon turning to glance at Peter out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Peter was now giving her a small look that said he was not laughing at her remark, so she just dropped the matter for now so that she could bring him up to speed on what she had found recently. "I'm tapped into every traffic cam and security system that I can get into in the hopes of picking up a trail on our recently revived nemesis Norman, but so far, it's coming up blank. Still, I have to ask; are you absolutely sure that was Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin? Last I checked he was a lot more green and way bigger than that. Like almost Hulk-sized. Not that I would know for sure, since I've never seen the Hulk in person, but he sure looked like he could be that big."

"It was him. I'm sure of it," Peter insisted, practically growling as he did. "I'd know that voice of his anywhere, and it wasn't just the voice, but the words too, and there was also the fact that he moved just like the real thing did, even for someone who was that massive. That was definitely the real Green Goblin."

"Still, how did he change from the massive monster that we've all seen Hobgoblin as into someone that seems a little more…human-like, except for the goblin-features," Mary Jane asked.

"I think I may have an answer to that," Connors replied as he stepped away from a computer that he had been working at over in the medical center of the Spider-Parlor. "The last time that Peter fought Norman, he was able to at least inject him with a small amount of our Goblin Cure, but it was not enough for it to really make that much of a difference. Even as Green Goblin, Norman was always a genius, so it's possible that he found a way to counteract the cure, and the results were what you saw tonight, Peter."

"You really think that's the case," Peter inquired.

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Even with that small injection, Norman should've been reverted back to normal over time, assuming it had been left alone, but clearly that wasn't the case," Curt nodded in response.

"Well whatever he did to himself, it doesn't change a thing. We track him down, I go after him, and I put an end to this nightmare," Peter said as he turned away to his lab table to do some maintenance work on his web-shooters.

"You mean like you almost did tonight," Mary Jane demanded. "Is that what you're going to do, Peter?"

"I never said that," Peter replied.

"Well you're not saying otherwise either," Mary Jane pointed out. "Peter, if you go after him like this, you'll be going against everything you stand for. What happened to great power coming with great responsibility?"

Both Mary Jane and Curt ended up jumping in shock when Peter suddenly slammed his fist down on the lab table, cracking it a little under the strength of his blow when he did, as he shouted, "What do you want me to do?! After all this time, that bastard is still alive! We thought he was gone, that after everything he stole from us, from me, that we wouldn't ever have to worry about him ruining our lives again, and now we've found out that he's played us all like a piano! Harry blames Spider-Man for the murder of his father, even though he's still alive, Captain Stacy is dead because he tried to help us stop him, and Gwen…Gwen is…and yet after all of that, it was all for nothing!"

Curt just exchanged a quick look with Mary Jane before he excused himself from the room, leaving the two best friends on their own as the redhead slowly placed a comforting hand on Peter's back in an attempt to help calm him down and ease his pain a little, all while Peter was doing everything he could to stop himself from breaking down into tears. "I know that you miss her. Gwen was my friend too, you know," Mary Jane reminded Peter. "But you can't keep doing this to yourself Peter. You need to stop holding on to this and blaming either yourself or Goblin for what had happened, and move on. Gwen would want you to do that."

For a moment, it seemed like her words were getting through to him, but in the end, Mary Jane ended up disappointed when Peter stood up again and slipped his mask on before heading over to the open window with one final statement on the whole thing. "Sorry MJ, but I can't let go or move on from this. At least not until I've stopped Green Goblin."

Mary Jane could do nothing more at that point than watch as Spider-Man jumped out of the window and swung away while letting out a sad sigh. It looked like Silver was right when she had called them earlier. Peter really was just trying to shut everything other than Spider-Man down in his life, and it was going to take something other than his friends to help him, especially with all that had now happened. Whatever the case may be in regards to her friend, she put it aside for now. She still had one other thing to do for Peter, and she quickly sat herself down at her computer setup so that she could make the necessary call.

* * *

The following night saw Spider-Man landing at the base of the clock tower where he had fought what should have been his last battle against Green Goblin, thinking there might be something there or in the nearby power plant that could give him a clue as to where Goblin might be hiding. If it had been up to him, Peter probably would have never come back to this place, because it was full of far too many memories that he would have preferred to have left forgotten, but it seemed like the universe just couldn't let him have a moment of peace. As he moved throughout the area, it was not hard for him to imagine the mad cackling of the Green Goblin, his pleas for him to not do what he was intending to do, or even the screams of a certain woman he knew quite well as she fell to her death, because even after all the time that had passed since then, he still had nightmares about that night, and those cackles and cries still echoed in every single one of his dreams even now.

After listening to these phantom echoes for what seemed like hours, it finally became too much for him to take, and he finally let out an agonizing yell as he punched the nearest wall as hard as he could, breaking the worn brick wall down a little once he had. He then panted heavily for a minute, mentally cursing Green Goblin's name over and over again while he regained his breath, until he finally straightened up and looked over his shoulder in a seemingly random direction. "I know you're there, so you might as well save us both the trouble and just come out," Spidey called out.

A second later, Batgirl dropped down from the shadows behind him, a neutral look on her face so that nothing she was feeling in regards to Spidey or anything at all was betrayed. She then looked between her fellow, costumed crime-fighter and the wall he had just punched before she finally asked, "So, what did the big bad wall do to you?"

Spider-Man said nothing in reply to this question, but instead just asked one of his own. "Shouldn't you be back in Gotham chasing some literal or figurative clowns or something?"

"Like I told you before, I'm in the middle of a case here in New York, and I'm pretty sure Batman wouldn't like it if I just left it half-done," Batgirl easily replied, her lips curving upwards by just a little smidge.

"Really, because I think Batman would like it better when his protégés are being a little more honest with him," Spider-Man easily quipped, wiping the smirk that had started to form on the redheaded hero's face away in an instant while her eyes widened a little in surprise.

Batgirl was quick to school her features again though, thinking that Spidey had not noticed, and simply asked, "And just what are you trying to imply?"

"Don't bother hiding it, Batgirl. I already called Cap, who asked Batman about that so-called case you were following up for him, and he said that there was no such thing," Spider-Man revealed, and the startled expression on Batgirl's face just served as further proof that he was right. "He did admit that you were supposed to help Cap keep Wonder Woman safe, but apparently, you were supposed to go back to Gotham once that was over and done with, along with whatever other business you had in New York. So, care to try and talk your way out of this, because I'm pretty sure that he was not referring to anything that involved batarangs and capes."

Batgirl just stared at Spidey in surprise for a few more minutes until she finally sighed in defeat. "Alright, I wasn't following up on any case, aside from trying to find out who hired Crossbones that is," Batgirl admitted. "I mean, that was all that I was doing at first, but after a while, both after I first started and after I finally got out of the webs you had tied me up in on that rooftop when we last spoke, I started doing a little more to help out. You know, stopping some crimes here and there, and for once…it felt like I was really making a difference. Like I was actually helping people as someone other than…one of Batman's sidekicks. If felt amazing, being able to do that and actually stand on my own out there and doing things in my own way instead of how people would probably expect Batman to do them, you know?"

Spidey was quiet for a minute or so, until he finally said, "Yeah, I think I have an idea of what that's like. I spent a great deal of my life trying to solve the mystery of what happened to my parents while living up to what my father was, that it wasn't until I started being able to do…well you know, whatever a spider can that I finally felt like I was becoming my own man instead of just my father's son."

"Well…the minute I get back to Gotham, that little adventure's over, and it's all back to being Batman's sidekick, even though we're technically partners," Batgirl sighed.

Hearing all of this from Batgirl, along with the disappointment in her voice, prompted Spider-Man to rub his head a little sheepishly before he finally said, "Listen…about the other night…I, uh…I'm sorry about that. It's just that…Goblin's a really personal matter for me. The last time I dealt with him, someone I cared about a lot ended up getting killed, and that kind of thing…well, it changes you."

"Yeah, I get that, but you shouldn't just shoulder all of that on your own. I mean, I can't be the only one who's offered to help you with this, can I," Batgirl pointed out. When Spidey said nothing, she took that to mean she was right, and she immediately pressed on by adding, "Besides, I've already started scoping out a few different locations that he could have slipped away to. If we work together we can find him and bring him in."

"No, I can't let you do that," Spider-Man denied.

"Why? Because you want to kill him yourself? So you can get revenge for what he did," Batgirl asked.

"No, it's because…because if I do expose him to the world, it will destroy my best friend," Spider-Man revealed. "Before Green Goblin had…supposedly died, he asked me to never tell his son what had happened to him, and to this day, I never have. I've let him think that I was the one that killed his father, be it at some point during my battle with Green Goblin or otherwise, and if he were to ever find out the truth, that his father was…is the Green Goblin, it would destroy him. More than that, the truth is that…Goblin's sick. He hasn't been in his right mind ever since he injected himself with a kind of performance enhancer that was supposed to be an attempt at recreating the super soldier serum. Because of that, he turned into the monster that you probably remember seeing in the files."

Batgirl was not sure what to say to that, but in the end, she eventually stepped forward to place a hand on his shoulder as a comforting gesture to him as she said, "I get it. You don't want your best friend's memory of his father to be tainted like that, but that doesn't change what you have to do. We still have to stop Green Goblin, but at the same time, we don't have to kill him."

"I don't plan on killing Goblin. I'm well aware that if I were to do that, he would win, and I appreciate the offer, really, but this is personal. I have to stop him alone," Spider-Man insisted.

"Well too bad, because I'm not letting you do this alone," Batgirl stated.

"And just how do you plan on doing that," Spidey challenged, his fingers already moving into their iconic position for when he was about to fire his web-shooters.

"Because I'm going to be sticking around for a long time to come," Batgirl revealed. That little surprise caused Spidey to freeze just as his fingertips were about to brush the triggers of his trusted wrist devices and Batgirl had clearly noticed his shock if the wide smirk she gained afterwards was any indication. "I've actually got something of a reason to move here on the civilian side of my life, so if I were you, I'd expect to see me around a lot more often, and don't think for a second that I won't keep on this Goblin case while I'm here, because I will be going on the hunt for him no matter what you say."

Spider-Man just stared at her for a minute before he finally asked, "So what? You think this means we're partners now or something, because I'd hate to break this to you, but Spider-Man doesn't have a sidekick."

"Please, if anything, you're the sidekick," Batgirl scoffed as she pulled out her grapple.

"Yeah right. Between the two of us, who actually has superpowers beyond a belt full of fancy little bat-themed toys," Spider-Man scoffed in reply.

"Oh like you really don't wish you had stuff as cool as this," Batgirl easily retorted before firing off the grapple and swinging away.

"Like I need any of it! I do whatever a spider can, and I can easily get around via web-swinging, which your trying to copy with what you're doing right now," Spider-Man bantered back as he fired a web-line and swung off after Batgirl, and the two continued on like that for hours on end into the night.

* * *

The next day, Peter was making his way across the ESU campus with Doctor Connors so that he could perform his day job as Connors' lab assistant. It was not really much, but it was still a much better job than his old freelance photography job at the Daily Bugle, and unlike Jameson, Connors actually gave Peter a decent pay, and by that it meant that Connors did not underpay Peter for his work. At the moment though, lab experiments, research, and other usual business for a pair of scientists was not the matter that they were discussing as they walked to Connors' lab. No, the subject of conversation for them right now was actually the events that had unfolded for Peter the previous night after his encounter with Batgirl.

"So you just argued with her for the rest of the night while fighting bad guys and looking for any clues to lead you to Goblin," Connors asked, just to make sure he had heard right.

"Pretty much," Peter shrugged. "But it wasn't really arguing. If anything, it was more like…bantering."

"I thought that's what you did with your enemies," Connors asked.

"Hey, superheroes can banter with other heroes from time to time too," Peter insisted rather defensively.

"If you say so, Peter," Curt shrugged, but the smug look on his face told Peter that this was not going to be the end of the matter as far as the good doctor was concerned. Moving on from there though, Connors then asked, "So what happened after you finally decided to call it a night?"

"Nothing too special. We just exchanged a few more words of banter, I turned to swing away, and when I turned back to ask her if she was actually serious about moving to New York, she had already pulled that whole Bat-vanish thing you always hear about on me," Peter shrugged. He then leveled Curt a look and asked, "Why do I get the feeling that you're asking me all this stuff because you're thinking that the whole thing was some kind of weird date?"

"I never said anything to suggest such a thing, Peter," Curt replied in a knowing tone. "Still, you have to admit, you do seem like you may actually…"

"Let me stop you right there," Peter interrupted. "Need I remind you that she attacked me twice now, confused me for that copycat knock-off, Black Spider, she's incredibly stubborn, prefers to do things her own way, and to top it all off, I just can't stand her."

"I believe that I've heard some people say that the best ones normally start out that way," Curt pointed out.

Peter just groaned in response, but before he could further argue his point, he suddenly found himself colliding with someone and dropping to the ground along with them and several books and papers. "Oh jeez, I am so sorry about that," Peter immediately apologized as he quickly started helping to gather up the other person's dropped items.

"No, no, it was entirely my fault. I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, and got a little turned around," the other person replied, their voice immediately telling Peter that he had run into a woman.

Just as Peter had reached out for one of the last papers, his hand suddenly brushed against the woman he had just run into, and they both immediately jerked up to lock eyes with one another. There before him, was a lovely young woman with fair skin, bright blue eyes that were hidden behind a pair of square-rimmed glasses, and long red hair that hung down over her shoulders a little. She was dressed in a rather simple outfit of a light blue, button-up shirt, a black knee-length skirt, and simple black shoes. The two of them just sat there staring at one another for what seemed like eternity until a small cough from Connors snapped them both out of their shocked states, and they immediately sprang up to their feet after Peter had handed her the last paper that they had both reached for.

"Um…so I guess you're a new student here at ESU or something," Peter asked.

"Yeah. Just started actually," the redhead admitted in an attempt to keep any awkward silences from forming. "Oh, I'm Barbara. Barbara Gordon."

"Peter Parker. Nice to meet you," Peter replied as he shook hands with Barbara.

"You wouldn't happen to be the same Peter Parker who used to take all of those Spider-Man pictures for the Bugle, would you," Barbara inquired, sounding rather intrigued and a bit excited.

"Uh, yeah. That's me," Peter admitted. "I actually work as an assistant for Doctor Connors here now."

"Really? Well, maybe you could show me around sometime, and maybe show me a few of your other Spidey pictures as well," Barbara asked with a hopeful note in her voice.

"Sure thing. Just name the time and place," Peter nodded.

"Well how about somewhere around here? It seems like this is the only place I really know how to find since I keep ending up here for some reason," Barbara offered.

"Yeah. Is Friday good?"

"Perfect," Barbara nodded.

"It's a date then," Peter replied. His words then registered in his mind, and he quickly said, "I mean, not like a date-date, I was just saying that I'd see you then. I mean, if you'd want to call it a date, that'd be cool too, but I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable or anything…"

Barbara just let out a small, cute laugh before she said, "Relax, I know what you meant, so I'll see you then, Mister Parker."

"Likewise, Miss Gordon," Peter nodded, and with that, Barbara walked off with Peter watching for a bit longer than was normal for someone. Another cough from Connors brought Peter out of the clouds, and upon seeing the knowing look on the doctor's face, Peter could not help but quirk an eyebrow in confusion at what he was smirking about now. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just glad that you're finally starting to find a way to move on and meet someone new, but don't you think Batgirl might be a little jealous," Curt replied.

Peter knew that Connors was teasing him, but that did not mean he was able to stop the blush from forming on his face. Sometimes he wished he was always wearing his mask, because without it, he was as easy to read as a kid's book. "It's not like that," Peter insisted. "I-I was just being nice, and besides, why would Batgirl be jealous? I don't even know who she really is, and the same goes for her about me!"

"Yet you're not denying that there might be something between you two," Connors pointed out.

"I'm not denying it because it's obvious that there isn't," Peter insisted.

Curt just paused in his tracks before looking at Peter for a minute and then saying, "Well, it seems that denial really is more than just a river in Egypt."

Peter just let out a frustrated growl and stalked away, with Connors laughing a little behind him as he did, neither of them knowing that Barbara Gordon was smiling rather excitedly at the thought of what was coming this Friday. One thing was definitely certain though: things in New York had just gotten a lot more interesting.

* * *

 ** _AN: Well, there you have it. More insight to Spidey's history, and Spider-Man's now had his first encounter his love interest in this story, both in their hero identities and in their civilian ones. Yes, you heard me right, for this story, Spidey's gonna get paired up with Batgirl. I know what you're thinking, "if he's gonna be in a relationship with Batgirl, then he's not really off to a great start, at least as far as the hero side of things is concerned." Well, not every relationship has the best start, and besides, in case you haven't noticed, it looks like Peter Parker and Barbara Gordon are on friendly terms. The question now is how long will that last when they finally find out each other's secret identities?_**

 ** _Joker: Oh, I can just taste the suspense!_**

 ** _Deadpool: When they finally find out, do you think they'll beat the crap out of each other, or do you think they'll screw each other on a rooftop?_**

 ** _Joker: You mean like a certain pair of heroes did in the animated movie Batman: The Killing Joke? Hm, you know that's actually a good question._**

 ** _AN: No, it isn't, you sickos! [hits control]_**

 ** _Joker: [gets catapulted into the path of a runaway train]_**

 ** _Deadpool: [gets blasted into the air by a massive cannon barrage]_**

 ** _Joker &Deadpool: [collide with one another after getting out of their respective beat downs only to look up and see multiple different versions of Spider-Man standing over them and cracking their knuckles] Whelp...bye now! [run away screaming with all of the Spider-Men on their tails]_**

 ** _AN: Okay, now that that's dealt with, on another note, let's talk about this story's version of Silver Sable. Originally, she was just going to be an informant that Spidey would go to for info on Crossbones, and an old friend, but I figured that with the history that those two had, however brief it may have been in the comics, it would've been more interesting to add a little more flare to the history of their relationship. Basically, they were once close to being a thing, but their costumed double-lives kinda got in the way of things and now their just friends._**

 ** _By the way, in case it isn't obvious by now, the supposedly final battle between Spidey and Green Goblin happened pretty recently, and Spider-Man's still trying to get over what had happened during that fight, ie Gwen Stacy's death, hence the reason why he's so opposed to starting a relationship. I know I mentioned that he and MJ went out for a little while, but as it has been pointed out, that was more of a rebound thing for Peter, and it ended up leading them to going back to being just friends. So whether or not Spidey &Batgirl/Peter&Barbara happen any time soon may depend on how many chapters pass until the next interlude._**

 ** _As for Goblin, I'd like to make something very clear here about his appearance. At one point before he appeared here, he looked like the hulking monster he is in the Ultimate Spider-Mancartoon, but now he looks more like he did in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, so basically, he's slightly bigger than a human being, but he also still looks like a messed-up monster. While we're on the subject of appearances, Crossbones looks like he did in Captain America Civil War, and I doubt I really need to tell you all how War Machine looks, since that dude's appearance doesn't really vary that much._**

 ** _Now then, I do believe we have a preview to move onto, and I suppose some of you are thinking that next chapter is going to be the events of "Legends", right? Well, technically you are half-right, because it will kinda start out the same way as that adventure had, but the rest of it is actually going to be something different. If you've seen the special sneak preview from one of my other stories, then you know what's coming next time, but if you haven't, here's a more simple version. Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _A battle in Metropolis leads nearly all of the Leagues save for Batman and Superman to be thrown all the way to New York, or at least what appears to be New York, but something is not quite right here. An encounter with another group of heroes similar to them leads them to even more questions about this strange world, and to a discovery that they're not expecting. Just what sort of adventures awaits the League in this world where the Justice League does not exist, and Earth is defended by a team of heroes that consist of both heroes that they know and ones that they don't know? Brace yourself for a lyokoMARVELanime special crossover event, next time in…_** **Chapter 11: Another Code of Heroes** ** _._**

 ** _So in case its unclear, let me spell it out for you. Next chapter is going to be a big crossover event between this story, and my Code Avengers story series. Don't stress out too much if you haven't read any of it yet. I'm gonna try to make it so that you won't really need to have read it for any reason other than to get an idea of just where in that series this chapter will take place._**

 ** _Oh and one more thing, if any of you are curious about that little idea that was mentioned earlier, the one about me writing a Spider-Verse story that'll take place at a later point in my Code Avengers series, let me know in the reviews for either this story or Code Avengers: Cosmic, please. On that note, I guess I'll just be sending you all off to carry on with your days, so..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	12. Another Code of Heroes

_**AN: Hey everyone! Are you ready for a major blast of awesomeness?!**_

 _ **[audience applause]**_

 _ **...Wow, I feel like I'm addressing a room of people who are in the middle of a very intense round of the Quiet Game. Let's try that again. ARE YOU READY FOR A MAJOR BLAST OF AWESOMENESS?!**_

 _ **[audience applause, much louder this time]**_

 _ **ALRIGHT! That's more like it! Well brace yourselves, because its time for the lyokoMARVELanime special crossover event that you have been waiting for! The adventure of Legends, with a new twist that can only come from yours truly.**_

 _ **But before that, I just want to clear up some confusion that everyone seems to have in regards to how things ended in the last chapter. In answer to the overwhelming question, which has already been answered, and thus should no longer be a question, YES, Peter Parker/Spider-Man is going to be paired up with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. It's just one of those relationships that starts off with the two not being one another's biggest fans, because, as Connors had said at the end of the previous chapter, the best ones normally start out that way.**_

 _ **I'll say it one more time to make sure it's clear: Spider-Man &Batgirl pairing is going to happen. If anyone has a problem with that, my apologies, but I really like the idea of that pairing and the direction I'm going to be taking with it, so that's that.**_

 _ **Also, in response to question from reviewer "Dragon Rider 66", sorry but no. SHIELD and Nick Fury do not exist in this timeline. At least, not yet anyways. I mean, Nick Fury does exist, but not in a major role yet. SHIELD on the other hand does not. That'll come about later on down the line.**_

 _ **Now, let's move on and get the ball rolling on this epic tale or grand adventure, worlds colliding, and heroes uniting!**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 11: Another Code of Heroes**

Sometimes people cannot help but wonder if it would be silly to think things would calm down for very long after a major incident involving superheroes, such as the allergen outbreak in Gotham or Crossbones' attack on Wonder Woman at the UN Building. Sure there were not any invasions or supervillain groups attacking the world every other day of the week, but there still did not seem to be all that much time in between two different incidents. Even the Justice League found themselves a little annoyed at how it seemed like they were having to respond to a major incident without much rest, but right now, they were more annoyed with the giant, green and purple robot that was currently rampaging through Metropolis. Ironically, it was this very same incident that was making everyone wonder if it was silly to believe that there could be a moment of peace between major incidents like this right at the moment.

Normally, such an occurrence would not be cause for great concern, but when Green Lantern went down after a particularly hard blow and did not get back up, everyone was quickly becoming more worried. Just before the robot could flatten John beneath one of its massive fists, Hawkgirl swooped in to bat the arm off course with her mace, making the robot miss John by a few inches. This left it open for the doubly strong blow that was delivered to its front upon turning around, courtesy of Superman and Martian Manhunter, and while it was stumbling from said blows, Flash took the opportunity to run in and start dismantling one of its feet at super speed. The robot eventually took notice of what Flash was doing and prepared to flatten the speedster, but thankfully, a strong shield throw from Captain America diverted its attention away from the speedster long enough for Flash to get clear again. Upon catching his shield on its return trip, Cap was quick to jump out of the way before the robot could flatten him beneath its fist, allowing Wonder Woman to race up and deliver a hard uppercut to its head.

The Amazon's attack was soon followed up by Hawkgirl smashing her mace against the robot's chest, only for it to do very little good and give the robot reason to fire a fire blast from its mouth at the winged Leaguer. "Who could be behind a monstrosity like this," Diana asked as she joined Hawkgirl in evading the robot's attacks.

"Don't know, but I do know how it's eventually going to break," Hawkgirl replied as she swung her mace to dispel another fireball that was blasted at them. She swung her mace through another few fireballs before finally charging forward along with Wonder Woman so that they could land a more direct strike on the massive machine, but unfortunately, Shayera never got close enough. Her charge had ended up leaving her wide open for the robot's next strike, and she was soon colliding with J'onn when the Martian had attempted to catch her. While J'onn had managed to prevent Hawkgirl from being further injured, he was not able to keep them from being thrown into the building behind them, and as a result, he was soon dropping to the ground along with Hawkgirl, until they ended up right next to Green Lantern.

Diana's eyes immediately narrowed at seeing her friends hurt like this, and she then prepared to charge the mechanical monster herself, but she as a result, she ended up making the same mistake as Hawkgirl, and thus she was unable to avoid the fire blast that soon knocked her unconscious. Seeing this prompted Captain America to leap up into the air in an attempt to save Diana before she fell to the ground and incurred further injury or worse, but while he was able to catch her, the speed at which she had been coming ended up leaving him winded, and he was soon joining the others in unconsciousness when he hit the ground along with Diana.

That served to be the final straw for the Man of Steel, and he was soon racing around the robot, evading its attacks until he was right on its back, which he started to pry open as fast as he could. "You're only getting one shot Batman," Superman shouted to his friend as he continued pulling open the robot's back, until he had exposed just enough of the inner workings of the machine for Batman's shot. "NOW!"

Batman gritted his teeth for a few seconds from where he was positioned on a nearby rooftop, having been waiting for his teammates to give him the opening that he needed, and he then let a batarang fly from his hand and into the opening Superman had created. The bat-shaped projectile easily flew through the hole and into the machine's core, causing it to spark, jolt, and explode, much to both the Dark Knight and Superman's horror. Before Superman could do anything about this, one of the bolts of electricity that the robot was sending out suddenly struck him, sending flying over to the rooftop that Batman was standing on, cursing the fact that he could not get close or do anything about it, and that silent cursing increased when he saw the robot begin falling backwards in the direction of their still unconscious teammates. Seeing that his friends were going to get flattened by the self-destructing robot, Flash did not hesitate to race forward and start creating a twister beneath the machine, knowing that he would never be able to pull them all out of the way before at least one of them was flattened, and as he continued running beneath the machine and his teammates, something unexpected started to happen.

Flash had run this fast and in a way that would create a small tornado before, but unlike the other times, there was no robot that was shooting off electric bolts in every direction, and one of those bolts seemed to mix with his speed energy, making him run a lot faster than he was intending too. That did not make him stop though, because he knew doing so would cause his friends to end up flatter than pancakes beneath the massive machine, so he just kept running, letting his new burst of speed happen. From everyone else's perspective, as Flash continued to run, a massive flash of light started to illuminate the darkness of the Metropolis night, until it finally grew to be too bright to see, and they were all forced to shut their eyes just as it exploded outward with a bang.

When Superman and Batman opened their eyes again, they would have breathed a sigh of relief at seeing that the robot had somehow disappeared thanks to whatever Flash had done, had it not been for a few major details. Along with the robot, large portions of the surrounding buildings seemed to have been carved out by some sort of laser, all giving off the impression that a spherical shape of the area had been cut from it, while a large crater was all that stood in the place where the robot had been falling, and where their friends had just been. Neither of the two remaining Leaguers were sure what had happened, but whatever the case, they intended to get to the bottom of it. They just had to hope that their friends would be alright until they did.

* * *

Flash was not really sure when he had passed out, but he knew that it was sometime after some kind of explosion had gone off, and the only reason that he was now regaining consciousness was because he heard Green Lantern beginning to stir as he woke up. Once he was propped up in a standing position against the now-busted robot, Flash looked to his friend and asked, "Did we win?"

"I'm not sure," John groaned. He then glanced around to see that Hawkgirl, J'onn, Diana, and Cap were all regaining consciousness as well, but what really confused him was the fact that it was now the middle of the day, and they seemed to be standing in the middle of an alleyway as opposed to the nighttime streets of Metropolis that they had previously been just a short time ago, at least as far as he knew. Once everyone was on their feet, John immediately looked up and called out, "Superman…Batman!"

Oddly enough, neither of the two answered him, and it did not seem like they were even in the area anymore. "Where'd they go," Hawkgirl asked, equally confused by the matter.

"Maybe the better question is where did we go," Diana remarked as she glanced around.

"Why do you say that," Flash asked.

"You mean aside from the obvious change in surroundings," Cap pointed out to the speedster. "If I had to guess, I'd say that this would be somewhere in New York."

"Where'd you get a crazy idea like that," John inquired.

"Just take a look," Cap said as he waved out towards the exit to the alley.

Upon looking in said direction, the other heroes' eyes had widened a little at the sight of Times Square just a short distance away from them. Seeing this definitely served to prove Captain America's point in the fact that they were not in Metropolis at the moment, and it did explain why Batman and Superman were not answering them right away, so they all immediately began to try to reach the two on their comm. links. Unfortunately, it did not seem to provide any better results than just calling out to the two had, but more than that, they did not seem to be getting a signal through at all. After testing to see if they could still contact each other via the comm. devices, they all breathed a sigh of relief to discover that the earpieces did still work fine, at least when it came to calling one another, but at the same time, it just made them more curious as to why they could not reach either of their other two teammates or even the Watchtower.

"Perhaps I can contact with my telepathy," J'onn suggested as he raised both hands to his head to help him concentrate. After a few seconds though, the Martian just groaned in frustration before he finally started to fall to his knees, prompting Flash and Diana to catch him before he hit the ground.

"You alright, big guy," Flash asked as J'onn steadied himself.

"Yes. Forgive me. I seem to be a little disoriented from what had happened," J'onn gasped.

John was worried about his friend too, but right now, they needed to find some answers on just what happened to them and their friends. Just as he was about to suggest a plan of action though, they all jumped a little at the sound of an explosion, immediately prompting them to run out of the alleyway and onto the street, searching for the source. When they finally found it when they spotted a skyscraper in the distance that had smoke rising from one of the upper floors, but what sparked their concern was the fact that some of them could see a pair of figures falling from the skyscraper, no doubt having been blasted out of the building from the point where the smoke had been rising from.

Flash did not even need anyone to say a word, because the minute they realized that those figures could be people falling to their deaths, he was off and running towards the building as fast as he could. The rest of the League just watched for a moment as the red blur of lightning that they knew was their friend ran up the side of the building before circling around right at where the two falling figures were and then disappeared along with said figures. A second later, they heard Flash coming back towards them, but instead of stopping, he ended up running right past them, much to their surprise. Thankfully, it seemed that Flash realized this as well because he had soon turned around and come back to them with a pair of women in his arms, no doubt being the two figures that had been falling from the skyscraper.

"Whoa, sorry about that," Flash apologized both to his passengers and his teammates. "I did not mean to run that far out. Guess I don't know my own speed some-Oh my god! You're on fire!"

Flash's outburst had immediately drawn the other Leaguers' attention to the women that he had just been carrying, and they were all shocked to see that both of their shirts were indeed on fire. Flash immediately reached out to try and pat it out, but immediately pulled back before his hands had even touched them, since it was mostly around their chest area. What shocked everyone even more though was the fact that neither one of the two were freaking out all that much as they patted themselves down until the small flames had finally died. As they were doing so, the League took this moment to give them a quick glance over. The taller of the two had long, blonde hair that stopped just a little past her shoulders, and was decked out in greenish-blue shirt, and dark pants. Her blue eyes were scrunched up in frustration, but somehow, they got the feeling that it was not because her clothes were on fire. The other woman was the one that made them pause for a second, mostly due to the fact that she had short, shoulder-length pink hair. Aside from that, the only other thing that was really noticeable about her was the visor that she wore to hide her eyes from view, and the dark pink and purple outfit she wore with an odd-looking, pink emblem on the chest which was seemed to have the top pointing in a diagonal direction with a decorative letter "A" in the center of it.

"Uh…you two don't seem all that bothered by the fact that you're on fire," Flash finally commented after a moment as they finally finished patting the flames out of their clothes.

"My outfit is made with an extremely durable material that keeps me safe from most kinds of serious injury," the pinkette of the two explained. "And aside from that…"

"We didn't need you to save us," the blonde interrupted, throwing the speedster a light glare when she did.

That was not a comment that any of the Leaguers were expecting at all, and John did not hesitate to point out the flaw in her logic. "You are aware that you just fell out of a skyscraper and would've gone splat if my friend hadn't been there, right?"

The blonde looked like she was about to say something in response, but her pink haired friend immediately placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "Leave it alone for now, Ms. M. In case you forgot, Iron Man's still in trouble. We've gotta get back to Stark Tower."

The blonde glanced between her friend and the Leaguers for a minute before she nodded in consent of the pinkette's point, and then stepped away from both for a minute while pulling out a black mask that she immediately placed onto her face. A second later, a bright, yellow glow surrounded her entire body, and her clothes seemed to melt away before being replaced by a red and black outfit that cover the majority of her torso with a gold star in the center of her chest, black boots that came up to her thighs, long black gloves that covered most of her arms, and a red scarf around her neck. Once this change had been completed, the blonde blasted up into the air and back towards the skyscraper that she had just been in at what seemed like supersonic speeds, leaving the Leaguers a little shell-shocked while Green Lantern had gone a little pale at something that his ring had picked up the minute that the woman had started glowing.

Seeing the stunned looks on the heroes' faces made the pinkette smirk a little before she raised her arm up, showing off the strange looking pink and purple wrist watch on her arm as she did and said, "If that was enough to surprise you guys, then you're really going to get a kick out of this. Virtualize!"

Upon shouting that last word, the pink-haired girl tapped the watch on her wrist, and her body was soon engulfed in a pink glow. When it subsided, the girl's attire had changed into a dark purple and pink full body suit with fingerless gloves, with a white portion around her chest, a white belt, and a light pink bracelet on her right wrist. Another thing that the Leaguers could not help but notice was that the pink-haired girl's visor had vanished, allowing the world to see her hazel colored eyes. With her own transformation now complete, the girl took a few steps back from the League and waved her hand over the bracelet on her right wrist, allowing a pair of energy wings to suddenly spring forth from her back. With her wings now out, the girl just nodded to the group with a small smile before she leapt up into the sky and flew after her friend.

Flash just stared at where the two girls had flown off to before he finally looked over to Hawkgirl and said, "I thought you were the only one with cool wings around here."

Shayera could not help but give the speedster a small smile in response to his comment as she said, "Well actually, I hear that X-Men group has a member with wings as well, so…"

"Leave it for later, we've gotta go after them," Green Lantern interrupted, and if it were not for the urgent tone in his voice, Hawkgirl would probably have snapped at him for cutting her off.

"What's wrong, John," Diana inquired.

"That energy the blonde was giving off was Kree," Lantern revealed, and Hawkgirl and J'onn's eyes had both widened in shock to match the panicked tone of his voice.

"I had always thought that they were a legend," the Martian of the two admitted.

"And for those of us who aren't aware of what goes on in the larger galaxy," Flash requested as he waved between himself, Diana, and Cap, both of which had looks of confusion that easily mirrored his own.

"The Kree are one of the most ancient civilizations and one of the major super powers in the galaxy," Hawkgirl explained. "They've been at war with another one, the Skrulls, for centuries now."

"And they don't send so much as one agent to a planet unless they were scouting it out to be conquered," John finished. "The Green Lantern Corps have been trying for years to broker a peace between the two while making sure that their war stays out of peaceful systems like Earth's, and it's never been easy. I've seen a lot of good Lanterns go down in a battle against a well-trained Kree soldier."

"So if that woman is one of their agents, then these Kree are planning to invade Earth," Diana asked.

"Looks that way princess, but what I want to know is why she's working with someone who might be a new superhero, and why they need to be at Stark Tower," John confirmed while posing a couple of important questions aloud.

Captain America had a question of his own to add to that list, but it was not one that they were expecting to hear. "More importantly, if they need to get to Stark Tower, then why are they going the wrong way?"

"You wanna run that by us again, Cap," Flash asked.

"Yeah, Stark Tower is supposed to be over in the opposite direction that they just flew off in, so why are they going away from it," Cap explained as he waved in the direction said building was supposed to be in.

"Are you sure about that, Cap, because when I was running up the side of the building, I'm pretty sure I saw Stark's name on the side of it," Flash argued.

"No, Steve's right. Stark Tower should be in the other direction," Diana revealed. She knew that Cap's memory was usually never wrong, and she had gone with him to Stark Tower a few times in the past, so she knew quite well where it was in reference to their current location.

This new information only served to confuse everyone even more about just what was going on, but in the end, Lantern deemed it unimportant for the moment and said, "Either way, if that woman is an agent of the Kree, we've got to catch up with her so we can get some answers about why she's here, and make sure that she doesn't hurt anyone. Flash, run ahead and see what you can scope out about the situation."

"I'm on it," Flash nodded, and he was soon racing off again, back to the skyscraper he had just run to not ten minutes ago in an attempt to catch up to the two mystery women.

After Flash was gone, the rest of the League took to the air in order to follow after him, with Green Lantern giving Captain America a lift with his ring, much to the super soldier's thanks. They may have been confused about what was going on at the moment, but that did not mean that they were going to ignore someone that was in trouble, and if what the pink haired girl said was true, then a lot of people at Stark Tower may have needed saving from something other than a possible Kree agent. Of course, if they had taken a moment to look, they probably would have noticed the gold colored blur that was also racing towards their destination before it had streaked past them.

* * *

It was supposed to be just a normal, peaceful day, and it had started out as such too, but when you are Tony Stark, the invincible Iron Man and leader of the team that everyone considers to be Earth's mightiest heroes, you eventually have to accept that normal is not really something that happens for you very much. That was a lesson he should have learned a short time after he first became Iron Man and announced it to the world, but sometimes, it seemed that the universe felt that it was necessary to remind him of that lesson over and over again. The only question he had right now was why did it always have to teach him that lesson by having someone attack his building like HYDRA was at the moment?

"I moved all of the other armors out of Stark Tower and into the mansion so that this kind of thing wouldn't happen, so why is that the bad guys still have to attack my building," Tony muttered to himself as he fired a couple of repulsor blasts at some HYDRA troops. In the midst of muttering about his grievances while focusing on the foots soldiers in front of him though, he failed to notice the Dreadnought coming up behind him in order to attack, but thankfully, he did not need to worry about it. Just seconds before the large robot could strike Iron Man, a red and gold blur suddenly slammed into the Dreadnought and sent it flying through the wall.

Turning to the newly made hole in the wall of his office, Iron Man soon saw one of his female teammates that he had seen get blown out of the building by an explosive that had caught both her and their other teammate off guard emerging unscathed and ready for action. "You know, you didn't really need to blast it through the wall to destroy it," Tony pointed out in an exasperated voice.

"Like you can't afford to have it repaired, assuming you don't fix it yourself," the red and black clad blonde quipped with a smirk.

Before Iron Man could retort, a pink energy field suddenly sent a HYDRA soldier that had been charging him flying into the wall to Carol's left, and the two turned to see their pink-haired teammate enter the room with a flap of her wings and a second energy field already formed and ready in her other hand. "How about we just fight the terrorists that are attacking the place for now instead of each other," the pinkette said as she threw the recently formed energy field at another Dreadnought. "Leave the matter of clean-up for later."

"Fine by me," both heroes replied, and they were all soon jumping back into the fight again, and tearing through the HYDRA troops that had dared to venture up to the floor Tony Stark's office was on.

They were not really fighting HYDRA for very long though when a streak of red suddenly whooshed into the room and start knocking out HYDRA goons left and right before their eyes. When there did not seem to be any soldiers left, the figure that was racing around fighting them, revealing a man that Iron Man thought was dressed in a very impressive Flash costume. No one had a chance to get a word of questioning or thanks out before the pinkette had to shout for the speedster to duck and threw an energy field at a HYDRA soldier he had missed that was attempting to hit him from behind. Said soldier was soon joining his comrades in unconsciousness when the blonde blasted him with a gold-colored energy blast.

"How'd you do that," the speedster asked in awe, looking at both the blonde and the pinkette when he did.

"I'm Ms. Marvel," the blonde replied like it was obvious.

"And I'm Angel Guardian," the pinkette added in a similar tone.

The red-clad man just gave both girls a look of confusion before he asked, "You're who now?"

That surprised Iron Man a little. He knew that Ms. Marvel had not been around in the hero business for very long, but surely this guy should have recognized Angel Guardian since she had been around for a little over a year. Of course, there was something that was a little more important that he needed to know about. "This guy a new friend of yours, Angel, Ms. Marvel," Iron Man asked, earning him a confused look from the speedster as well.

"I wouldn't say that," Ms. Marvel replied. "The rookie here thought he needed to play hero and save us when we were blasted out of the building."

Angel Guardian gave the speedster an apologetic look and explained, "Sorry about her. She's kind of the type of person who doesn't think she needs others to save her that often. Speaking of which, how did you save us?"

The speedster just glanced between the three for a minute before he explained, "Well…you fell out of the window, and…And I caught you both and ran you all the way over to the other side of Manhattan, which I did not mean to do by the way, before I ran us back over to where my friends were. I don't really know my own speed sometimes."

"Well how about you give us a name to go with the face, Red," Ms. Marvel demanded.

At this point the speedster was smiling a little like he had just heard a good joke, and he then chuckled as he replied, "I'm the Flash."

Iron Man and the two girls immediately exchanged disbelieving looks between themselves before Ms. Marvel finally said, "Excuse me?"

Once again a look of surprise crossed the speedster's face, but before anyone could say another word, Iron Man quickly cut in. "As much as I would enjoy a good round of Twenty Questions, there's still the matter of HYDRA in my building, so can we table it for now? Thank you." He then ignored the speedster's look of confusion and the question he was starting to ask as he diverted his next question to his trusted AI. "J.A.R.V.I.S., what's the status of the other groups?"

 _"Black Panther and Wasp have nearly finished subduing the HYDRA Forces that had infiltrated the main labs, but there are still a large number of HYDRA troops in the ARC Reactor room,"_ the computer butler replied.

"Of course they are," Iron Man groaned. "Look, let's deal with the Flash fan-boy later. Right now, I want HYDRA out my office building, and where the heck is Sprint Samurai?"

"He's on his way," Angel Guardian replied. "Hank says he'll meet us down at the ARC Reactor."

"Then let's get moving," Ms. Marvel said, and she was soon flying out of the room and to their next destination with Iron Man and Angel Guardian right behind her, while Flash just stared at where the three had flown off to even more confused than he was before.

If any of the other Leaguers saw him right now, they would probably think something was wrong with Flash, because he was unable to do anything other than just stand there frozen in his tracks. Still, he figured he should probably report in what he had just found out, so he immediately tapped his comm. link to call the others. "Uh guys. Looks like they did end up at Stark Tower, and I'm not just saying that because Iron Man's here too, but the weird thing is that Iron Man seems to think it's his building for some reason. Or at least that's one of the weird things."

 _"What else is there,"_ J'onn immediately asked.

"Our Kree woman, it turns out that she and the pink haired girl were actually helping Iron Man stop a bunch of guys who are seriously die-hard HYDRA fans. You should see some of the stuff they've got, and it's all following the same theme that those guys would've had if they survived through the Forties. Oh, and I've got a couple of names to go with the new faces. They said they're called Ms. Marvel and Angel Guardian. That ring any bells for anyone?"

 _"No, I've never heard of them,"_ Hawkgirl replied, and everyone was soon voicing similar answers.

 _"Anything else we should be aware of, Flash,"_ Lantern asked.

"Yeah; apparently the HYDRA wannabes, who even Iron Man is calling HYDRA for some reason, are down in the ARC Reactor room right now. Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, and Angel Guardian just headed down there to stop them."

 _"More like this 'Ms. Marvel' is hoping to make sure that one of the most powerful energy sources won't be used to threaten a Kree invasion,"_ Lantern practically snarled.

"I kinda doubt that. She helped to save me earlier, and besides, there's still the matter of guys dressed in HYDRA get-up attacking the ARC Reactor room, so maybe we should consider that they're on our side?"

 _"Flash has a point. Kree scout or not, they're still helping to stop an attack,"_ Wonder Woman reasoned.

 _"And if they really are in the ARC Reactor room, then we can't let things get too out of hand. If that thing is damaged or tampered with in the wrong way, then the whole city may end up paying the price. Flash, head down there and do what you can to help out. We'll meet you there,"_ Cap ordered.

"I'm on it," Flash replied, and he was then gone from the office in an instant.

* * *

It did not take long for Iron Man and the girls to get down to the ARC Reactor, and it took even less time for Flash to arrive and start helping out. Of course, even the fastest man alive had a hard time dealing with a small army of heavily armed goons, even with a little backup, and it showed when he was eventually tripped up by one of the robots that he had heard Ms. Marvel call Dreadnoughts. Flash was just starting to rise when he noticed that the massive machine had moved to stand directly over him, one of its arms now a cannon that it planned on firing at him, and for a moment he felt a little paralyzed, but it was not because of the robot that was about to kill him. No it was because something that was completely unexpected for him happened.

Just before the Dreadnought fired, a sudden flash of gold raced past his vision, and the machine suddenly fell apart like it had been sliced in half seconds later. It did not end there though, as that same flash of gold turned out to be a gold blur that was racing around the room taking down the other soldiers that were wearing HYDRA getup, much like Flash would often fight, only he could hear something that sounded like the whistling of a swinging sword quite a few times when they were attacked. When the blur finally came to a stop in front of him, Flash's eyes widened a little bit at the sight of a brown haired man who was decked out in a yellow and brown battle suit with a black harness on his back, spinning a pair of katannas around at a rapid pace as he deflected the storm of laser blasts that were flying at them. A second later, managed to deflect a pair of the blasts so that they rebounded off his sabers right back to the criminals that had fired them, knocking them out of the fight as well, and giving them a moment of pause. When the man turned to face Flash, he was able to see that his eyes were hidden behind a visor with a black frame and red lenses, while a smile was firmly planted on his face. In all honesty, Flash was a little dumbstruck, and he soon found that the only thing he could say in response to what had just happened was something that a friend of his had once said the first time they had met after he became the Flash.

"You're fast," Flash said.

"I know," the sword-wielding speedster smirked with a shrug before helping Flash to his feet. A minute later, the two were both racing back into the action after they were just narrowly hit by a laser blast that Iron Man had managed to evade, both making a mental note to see how fast they were in comparison to one another later as they did.

Speaking of Iron Man, while he did manage to evade most of the blasts that the Dreadnoughts and HYDRA soldiers were firing at him, was unable to do so forever, and he soon found himself knocked out of the air and held down to the ground beneath one of the green automatons' feet. "A little help here, someone," Iron Man called out as he struggled to make any kind of move in his own defense.

His request was soon answered, but it was not by any of the heroes in the room, but instead by a green energy blast courtesy of Green Lantern, who had just arrived on the scene, with the rest of the League right behind him. The blast Lantern had thrown at the automaton was enough to force the robot off of Iron Man, and Hawkgirl swiftly followed up that attack with a swing of her mace that tore through the robot like a knife through butter while he helped Iron Man back to his feet. The two then took to the air again alongside Angel Guardian and Ms. Marvel, and the four were all soon throwing out a variety of different energy blasts in order to deal with the Dreadnoughts, while the others faced the other troops on the ground.

J'onn was having a rather easy time dealing with his enemies, as most of their attacks just went right through him thanks to his density shifting powers, but he was not able to keep that up forever, and soon found himself having to actually dodge in order to avoid being hit while he fought back against his enemies. Still, he could not keep that up forever, as he soon found out when someone managed to strike him from behind, earning a cry of pain from the Martian as he fell to the floor. Just as a pair of soldiers were about to fire on him while he was down, a bright blow glow seemed to light up the room, and the soldiers were soon being knocked into the wall by a massive, yellow fist. That same fist seemed to disappear soon after in the same blue glow, but J'onn soon saw it again at a much more normal size when it suddenly appeared before him in an offer to help him up, one that he thankfully accepted. When he was on his feet again, he saw that his rescuer was a woman with short, brown hair and blue eyes that just shined with excitement. She was decked out in a yellow and black dress that left her shoulders bare, black pants and sleeves, yellow gloves and boots, and a pair of yellow antenna on her ears, making it seem a little like she had a thing for bees or similar insects.

After another moment or so, the woman raised a hand and gave a small wave as she simply said, "Hi. Just so you know, it's a little awkward for me to be saving a Kree after the whole thing at the UN Building the other day, so it's not just you."

J'onn mentally quirked one of his nonexistent eyebrows at the woman before he replied, "I am not a Kree. I am a Martian."

That seemed to throw the woman off for a minute before she just shrugged and said, "Oh…well okay then. Well now that we've got that settled, how about we make like the Hulk and smash some more HYDRA goons."

J'onn did not have much time to agree before the woman shrank down and allowed a pair of yellow insect wings to sprout from her back, while bright yellow energy sprang to life around her hands as she flew forward. A gesture that made it seem like she was throwing something was all that the woman needed before the energy around her hands was released in a blast against the nearest HYDRA soldier, but it did not seem like it did much more than sting him a little. This would probably not be of much concern if said stinging was not happening so much and at such a fast rate, and that proved to be a sufficient distraction for J'onn to be able to just walk up and slam a strong punch across his face. When the miniaturized woman smiled brightly at him in thanks, J'onn found he could not help but return her smile with a small one of his own before they both returned their full attention to the fight.

Diana had soon found herself in a similar situation to J'onn's, despite the fact that she was a well-trained Amazon warrior. Now do not misunderstand, Diana was more than able to hold her own against so many enemies at once, but the fact that there was so many of them, along with a number of Dreadnoughts that had slipped past the four airborne heroes to fight her made it a little difficult to really hold her ground for that long, and she soon found herself literally backed against the wall, until she received an unexpected assist like J'onn had. Unlike Martian Manhunter though, she recognized her rescuer the minute he had appeared, but only because she had seen a few images of the ceremonial armor that he wore a few times after their first meeting at the UN Building. Said armor was all black, with white eyes, and held a cat-like appearance that was only enhanced by the small, pointed ears on his cowl and the claws on his gloves, which he had swiftly used to slice through a number of HYDRA soldiers before drawing a set of purple daggers which soon became ablaze with energy that had a distinct humming to them and then tossed said daggers into two of the Dreadnoughts, leaving the third for Diana to destroy before she faced the man before her.

"Black Panther," Diana asked in honest surprise.

"Correct," the king of Wakanda nodded in reply before drawing another pair of his infamous Vibranium daggers and entering the fray once more without another word. Diana had half expected him to say a little more than that, but she shrugged it off as something that was easily forgotten due to the current situation before she too rejoined the fight.

After that point, it did not seem like there would be anyone else joining in on the fight, but Captain America still found himself having a small encounter with one of the heroes on this odd team when the yellow and brown clad speedster suddenly raced over to him and sliced a saber through a HYDRA soldier that was about to attack him. Oddly enough, when the HYDRA soldier fell, there was no indication that he had just been slashed by a sword-type weapon in the fashion that he had been, and it seemed like he was only unconscious, so Cap had to assume there was a special quality to this man's swords that prevented serious harm to those that they cut through. He put it aside for the moment and just smiled to the young man and said, "Thanks for that, soldier."

"Save it," the sword-wielding speedster snarled, surprisingly, before he leveled Cap a rather heated glare for some reason. "Don't think you're off the hook for that stunt you pulled the other day, _Captain_ , and we will be adding the fact that you got your old shield fixed without any of us knowing to that list of things to discuss."

Steve was confused by this statement, as well as the man's hostility towards him, but all that was quickly forgotten after a HYDRA soldier threw an explosive device into the spinning energy stream of the ARC Reactor, creating an explosion that drew everyone's attention to it. When they had all turned their gaze to the large device, they saw the swirling energy somehow merge with a storm of electricity as a series of explosions and electrical bolts suddenly sprang out from it and all around them. Iron Man was at the console in an instant, and he wasted no time in rapidly typing in a serious of commands to find out what was happening to the reactor and why. The answer he found was not one that he wanted to see.

"Those idiots," Iron Man loudly cursed. "Something in that grenade is mixing with the ARC Reactor's energy output, building up the energy its generating to critical levels. If we don't stop it, the reactor will explode, destroying Stark Tower."

"We've got to get everyone out of here then," John stated, but Iron Man had not finished what he had been saying.

"Along with literally half of Manhattan," the armored hero finished.

"Uh…I don't think even with two speedsters we'd be able to get everyone clear," Flash said, and it looked like the sword wielding speedster had to agree with that.

"Can't you shut it down," Ms. Marvel asked.

Iron Man looked like he was doing just that when the console suddenly sparked and then exploded, knocking him away. "That answer your question," he asked rhetorically. "The manual controls are fried, and J.A.R.V.I.S. can't seem to get into the necessary systems to shut it off."

"What about the automatic override protocols? They should be activating when something like this happens, right," Angel Guardian pointed out.

"Yeah, they should, but for some reason they aren't registering that anything's wrong with the ARC Reactor," Iron Man explained. He then seemed to pause for a moment in thought before he added, "Unless…the energy from the grenade they threw in isn't registering with the system's scanners! Since it can't pick up on the foreign energy that's mixing with the ARC Reactor's energy stream, it doesn't know that something's wrong or that the energy in it is building up, so as far as the computer's concerned, there's nothing wrong."

"Well then flip some switches and tell it that there is something wrong," the black and yellow clad woman said, her distress clearly known by the panic in her voice.

"I would've done that by now if I could," Iron Man pointed out. "We're going to have to try and convince it by adding another source of energy that the system can recognize, but it would have to build up the energy levels at a really...fast rate." At that last bit, the armored hero had turned his attention to the sword wielder of his surprise team. "Samurai, I need you to run."

"Excuse me? You're crazy if you think I'm leaving you guys here like this," the now identified Samurai retorted.

"I didn't say leave; I said _run_ ," Iron Man clarified. "If you run around the ARC Reactor in the same direction as the energy stream's rotation, the kinetic energy you build up should be siphoned into the stream, mixing with the ARC Reactor's energy, but you'll have to run around it at an incredibly high speed and keep doing so until it builds up to the point where we need it to and J.A.R.V.I.S. is able to engage the emergency shutdown protocols. Think you can manage that?"

All eyes were on Samurai at this point, everyone wondering if he would actually be able to do it, while only the League was wondering why Iron Man did not ask Flash to do this. They eventually figured it was because he did not want to ask someone he did not really know that well to perform such a feat, assuming there was any kind of risk to it, but any further thoughts on the matter were cast off as the brown and yellow clad speedster spun his swords around and slid them into the harness on his back as he stepped forward with a small smirk on his face as he answered Iron Man. "In case you've forgotten, the name's not _Running_ Samurai. It's Sprint Samurai. As in…Super Sprint!"

With those last two words, the samurai hero was off and running around the ARC Reactor in a blur of gold, and they all found that they could do nothing more than hold their breath as they watched him while Iron Man kept his eyes on the energy levels that were steadily starting to build up as Sprint Samurai raced around the ARC Reactor, and the countdown that J.A.R.V.I.S. had started running to indicate how much time they had left before the reactor finally blew due to the intake of unknown energy.

"Come on, Bro," some of the Leaguers heard Angel Guardian whisper as she folded her hands in prayer while watching Sprint Samurai run around the ARC Reactor.

Apparently the small woman in yellow and black had heard the pinkette too, because she immediately turned a worried look towards Iron Man and nervously asked, "Tony?"

"The energy build-up is happening, but at this rate, it'll be at least a minute too late by the time he hits the point we need it to be at," Iron Man reported. "Samurai, you've gotta pour it on and give it everything you've got."

"Hate to break it to you, Iron Man, but I'm _already_ giving it all I've got! This is my top speed," Sprint Samurai called back as he continued running around.

Iron Man had to curse under his breath at hearing this, and Ms. Marvel was immediately next to him asking, "Would it help if someone else was moving around the thing with him at that speed, or faster?"

"Well there is a chance that someone moving at an equal or greater speed than Samurai currently is right now could help speed things up so that the reactor hits the energy output we need it to be at sooner, why," Iron Man replied.

"Then let me get in there. I'm able to fly at supersonic speeds, so maybe…"

"No, you're energy absorption powers might counteract and pull in whatever energy you and Samurai send out, and that would just make it take even longer," Iron Man interrupted before the blonde could get any farther in her idea.

"Well then why not just have him use his Triplicate. That'll give us three speedsters for the price of one," the tiny woman suggested.

"It wouldn't work," Angel Guardian revealed. "When he uses Triplicate, he also divides his powers up into each of the duplicates so that they're evenly split three ways. We'd get three speedsters, but it would just give us the same results in the end."

Before anyone could come up with another suggesting, Flash suddenly stepped forward and said, "I can do it."

"What? No way. I'm not letting some rookie get in there and possibly screw things up more than they already are," Iron Man denied.

The entire Justice League gave Iron Man a small look for when he called Flash a rookie, but they put it aside for later when Cap walked up to the scarlet speedster and asked, "You sure you can handle it, Flash?"

"Like I said, I can do it," Flash confirmed. "I've already run fast enough to disperse an F5 tornado once before. This shouldn't be that much different aside from the direction I have to run in."

"Then what're you waiting on," Cap asked. "Run, Flash, run!"

No other words needed to be said before Flash was off and running, and in no time at all, he was matching speeds and right beside Sprint Samurai, a fact that the samurai hero did not fail to notice after a few seconds. "Mind if I lend a hand," Flash asked, rhetorically.

"Only if you think you can keep up," Sprint Samurai joked in response.

"Please," Flash scoffed. "I'm gonna lap you."

With that, Flash did not just start pulling ahead of Sprint Samurai, he practically rocketed ahead, but it was not to the point where Samurai could no longer see him in front of him, and seeing Flash pulling ahead of him and maintaining a faster speed was all the motivation that Sprint Samurai seemed to need to start trying to push himself to go faster, even if he was already at his current limits. From outside the two's little race circuit around the ARC Reactor, everyone else could only watch as the red and gold blurs raced around the reactor, while the computerized voice of Iron Man's AI counted down the remaining time until the ARC Reactor would explode, based off of the armored hero's calculations. At one point, Green Lantern raised his ring up in preparation to form an energy field around the gathered heroes, while Angel Guardian seemed to start singing while raising one hand in front of her for reasons unknown to the Leaguers, but they were soon pausing in their actions when J.A.R.V.I.S.'s countdown suddenly stopped and the AI announced something else instead.

 _"Warning: massive energy buildup detected in the main ARC Reactor. Energy output reaching critical levels. Activating emergency shutdown protocols."_

A few seconds later, the room started going dark around them, and the swirling energy of the ARC Reactor faded out until it had disappeared completely. The two speedsters had managed to succeed in their goal. When they both realized this, they eventually managed to break off their little race and came to a stop in front of their respective teams, both panting a little in exhaustion. After a few seconds or so of panting while he rested his hands on his knees, hunched over, Sprint Samurai looked up at Flash, grinned, and said, "Good run."

"Back at ya," Flash panted in a surprising bit of exhaustion for him.

In the confusion, a few of the remaining HYDRA troops had attempted to make a break for the door, but they quickly found their exit cut off when Ms. Marvel, Angel Guardian, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl appeared in their path and knocked them all with a few simple punches. As she glanced around the room at the various HYDRA troops that were lying unconscious, Angel Guardian commented, "Well, I guess it's safe to say we now know what happened to a lot of HYDRA's Dreadnoughts after we took down Barron Strucker."

"I think there's something a little more important that we need to concern ourselves with right now, Sis," Sprint Samurai said as he finally got his breath back and stood straight up, throwing a glare at a certain super soldier. The League was a bit surprised at this show of hostility, but that did not stop them from bracing themselves for a fight when they saw Sprint Samurai moving a hand to one of his sabers as he next spoke. "You care to explain yourself, Rogers, starting with why you decided to bail on Hawkeye and Hulk without letting anyone know? Oh, and think carefully before you answer."

That statement immediately rekindled the League's confusion. "I'm sorry son, but I do I know you from somewhere," Captain America slowly asked.

"Very funny," Sprint Samurai scoffed, sarcasm clear as a neon sign in his voice. "But joking around like that isn't getting you out of the hot water you seem to want to drown yourself with. First that stunt you pulled at the UN Building when the Kree invaded by attacking Ronan out of nowhere, then you dodge me for weeks, and now you've bailed on your friends to get your shield repaired in secret?"

"How did you even get it fixed in the first place," Angel Guardian asked in a tone that was much more akin to friendly curiosity, but they could still see a slightly suspicious look in her eyes.

"Fixed? Uh, you guys do know that Cap's shield is indestructible, right," Flash asked.

"Vibranium may be more durable than most metals, but even it has a breaking point, as Loki pointed out during our battle against him in Asgard," Black Panther corrected.

"Wait a minute, did you say you fought against Loki," Wonder Woman asked in surprise.

"More importantly, did you say that you fought against Ronan? As in Ronan the Accuser? How are you all still alive," Green Lantern asked.

That drew some confused looks from the unknown team of heroes before the mask of Iron Man's helmet slid back to reveal a familiar, bearded face to the League as he said, "I'm guessing you guys weren't watching the news or something when the Kree invaded a few weeks back."

"Tony Stark," Hawkgirl exclaimed. "You're Iron Man?!"

"Uh…yeah. That's not exactly big news, lady. Everyone's known that for years," Tony revealed.

"Well this is the first any of us have heard of it, because last I checked, Iron Man was supposed to be Tony Stark's bodyguard, not Tony Stark himself," Lantern stated.

That was when Wonder Woman thought of something that Sprint Samurai had mentioned before, and felt the need to ask about it. "You said that Captain America had caused a scene at the UN Building a few weeks ago, correct?"

"Uh yeah. Like Tony said, the Kree invasion was all over the news. Kinda hard to miss," Sprint Samurai confirmed.

"But the only time I recall Cap being at the UN Building was when Crossbones had attacked it in an attempt to kill me," Wonder Woman said.

At that point, the confusion both groups had gained was reaching an all-time high point, and they were all getting more than frustrated with it. In the end though, it was Iron Man who ended up asking the question that would probably make it go beyond the pinnacle it had already reached. "Okay, stop! Everyone just stop before we go any further! Who are you people," the armored hero demanded.

Flash had now gained a small sense of déjà vu at hearing this question, but he still answered it for the group all the same. "We're the Justice League."

Everyone was silent at that point, until the woman in yellow and black started laughing, drawing all attention to her. "Oh wait, you're serious," she said, upon realizing that the speedster was not joking.

"Why wouldn't we be," Green Lantern asked.

"Because the Justice League and every other hero like Superman and Batman are just a bunch of characters in fiction," Ms. Marvel revealed.

That quickly silenced the entire League, having not expected that response at all, while Flash on the other hand was glancing around looking a bit more contemplative, yet still just as shocked as the rest of them. "Uh guys, I think I might have an idea as to what's going on," the speedster told his friends.

"And what would that be," J'onn inquired.

"I get the feeling we're on the wrong Earth," Flash stated. After letting that sink in for his teammates, he looked to the other group of heroes and said, "We're gonna need your help."

The six heroes standing before the League just glanced between themselves for minute, before they gazes finally rested on Angel Guardian, almost like they were expecting her to help make their decision easier for some reason. When she finally nodded, Tony looked back to the League and said, "Let's talk back at our headquarters."

No one voiced any disagreement with that idea, and the Leaguers were soon flying out of Stark Tower, following after this other team of heroes as they led the way back to their headquarters.

* * *

It turned out that this other team's headquarters was actually a very nice mansion with impressive sub-level facilities, and in various different rooms, the League saw a decorative letter "A" in many stylings, including on the circular conference table of the large room that they were now gathered in, which Iron Man said was dubbed the Assembly Hall. Along the way, the League learned the names of everyone on this other team that they were not already aware of, and their secret identities, at least for those of them that had one in this universe. The woman in yellow and black was called Janet Van Dyne, better known as the Wasp and alternatively as Giant-Woman, Ms. Marvel's real name was Carol Danvers, and Sprint Samurai and Angel Guardian were revealed to be a pair of nineteen-year-old kids by the names of Ulrich Stern and his adopted sister Aelita. The fact that the last two were so young was rather surprising for the League, but what turned out to be even more surprising was when the two revealed that they had been saving the world since they were in Junior High School. They would have questioned the two on it a little more, but right now, it seemed like there was something else that was still on everyone's minds.

"So, you're Captain America, just not our Cap," Wasp asked, making sure she was understanding right.

"I…guess so," Cap shrugged in admittance, honestly having just as hard a time with keeping up on the whole concept of being in another dimension as the size-changer apparently was.

"Look, I know it's a bit difficult to get, but it is the truth," Flash insisted.

"Trust me, it's not as hard to believe as you may think it is," said a man with light brown hair and hazel eyes. It had seemed a little strange for a completely normal man in a white lab coat, red v-neck shirt, and grey pants to have been waiting for them at the door, but Tony quickly explained that said individual, whose name was Hank Pym, was actually a founding member of the Avengers, the now-former Ant-Man/Giant-Man, and he also served as an additional support specialist for the team alongside the AI that Tony developed, known as J.A.R.V.I.S. "Aside from the fact that our Captain America is off in Canada tracking another lead on the Serpent Society with Hulk and Hawkeye, this isn't actually the first time we've encountered something, or someone from another dimension."

"What do you mean by that," Diana asked.

Janet was the one who stepped in with the answer as she waved at the two youngest members of the team like she a magician's assistant would present something to the audience. "Ulrich and Aelita here are actually from another universe as well."

That shocked everyone in the League quite a bit, leaving only Flash was able to say anything in response to that. "You two are from other universes?"

"Well, we're both from the same universe actually, but yeah, still a different universe than this one," Aelita confirmed with a small grin while Ulrich just nodded.

"…Cool! Whoa! So do you guys have other heroes or people from parallel worlds on this Earth," Flash finally asked after a minute.

"Alternate universe," Aelita corrected, drawing a confused look from Flash. "Ulrich and I are from an alternate universe, not a parallel one. There actually is a difference."

"Okay, back up a minute. You lost me at the whole 'this Earth' thing. Please explain before we get into anything too technical," Janet practically begged.

Flash was instantly out of the room and then running back in with a wipe board and marker that he had gotten from somewhere in the mansion after making sure if it was okay for him to explain, to which he received a confirming nod from the resident geniuses that were present. "A friend of mine explained it like this once," Flash started as he began drawing circles on the wipe board. "Alright, so imagine there are multiple versions of Earth, like one where…Stark was never captured by terrorists, one where Spider-Man got his powers from an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum that gave Cap his powers…"

"I kinda like the image of that one," Aelita muttered to Ulrich with a smile, earning a small groan from her foster brother in response.

"Oh, how about one where all of us are evil," Janet offered.

"Been there; it sucks," Flash revealed before he turned everyone's attention to the wipe board that was now full of circles that represented different versions of Earth. "And all of these Earths occupy the same place in space, but they vibrate at a different frequency so they can't see one another."

"Right," Aelita nodded as she stepped up to finish what Flash was saying. "But if you can go fast enough, then you could possibly open a breach that would act as a kind of gateway you could jump through to get to other Earths."

"Yeah, exactly," Flash confirmed with a smile, very impressed by the pinkette's apparent intelligence.

"So wait, if you need to go really fast to get to another Earth, then wouldn't that mean we ended up here because," Diana started to ask as hers and the rest of the League's gaze immediately wandered over to their resident speedster.

"Yeah…that was my fault, guys. Sorry," Flash admitted with an apologetic shrug and a sheepish smile.

"But if you can go fast enough to get to other worlds, then can't you get you and your friends home," Ms. Marvel asked.

"Uh, no. This whole thing was actually an accident," Flash revealed. "I think when I got hit by the energy that robot we were fighting started sending out as it blew, it somehow mixed with the Speed Force in my body, and made me temporarily able to run fast enough to actually open a breach that we all got sucked into. I mean, I've traveled through time on my own by accident before…"

"That's cool," Hank immediately stated, and Janet could see his eyes start gleaming like they always seemed to whenever his scientific curiosity was really peaked.

"But this is the first time I've jumped to a parallel dimension without meaning to, so I'm afraid we're kind of…stuck here," Flash finished.

"Well lucky for you, you've got three brilliant minds to help you guys figure out a way to get back home," Tony reassured as he waved between himself, Hank, and Aelita.

"Thanks. We appreciate that," John nodded. "But you still haven't told us one thing. In a world without the Justice League, who exactly is it that keeps Earth safe from major threats?"

"That would be us. The Avengers," Iron Man replied. When the League just looked at him, he rolled his eyes a bit and explained, "That's what we call ourselves. Earth's mightiest heroes who fight the battles that no single hero could withstand, and who avenge the wrongs caused by villains type of thing."

"I came up with the name," Wasp revealed with a proud grin.

"Okay, before we do anything else, could someone please explain what Aelita meant when she said that there's a difference between alternate dimensions and parallel ones," Hawkgirl asked.

"I can," Aelita stated as she allowed Flash to take a seat and took his place at the wipe board, erasing the circles from it so she could have space to effectively draw what she needed. "Alright so, think of reality like our solar system, with the source of all dimensions being at the very center like the sun."

"Okay," Wasp said while everyone else just gave some form of nod to show they were following her.

"Now this, is us," Aelita said as she drew a circle on a line that circled around the sun she had already drawn on the board. "And by us, I mean our universe, the Justice League's, and pretty much every other world in our multiverse. Like how Earth is just one planet in our solar system, there are multiple different 'planets' in reality as well, and those planets are composed of various parallel worlds. So while it is difficult to get from one parallel world to another, in this sense, it's really not that different from when you travel from USA to somewhere like say Japan or South America. They're different continents or countries, but they still exist on the same world."

"And like how there's usually more than one planet in a star system, there's more than one multiverse in this…reality system," Green Lantern asked.

"Right," Aelita confirmed as she drew another line around the sun on the board, adding a circle onto said line once it had been drawn. "And those are alternate dimensions. Like how other planets have different atmospheres, minerals, and other elements compared to our Earth, alternate dimensions have various different aspects that make them different to just about any dimension in a multiverse. There will often be similar events or people when going from one alternate dimension to another, like World War II, the American Revolution, or any of the past presidents, but things like Stark Tower, Wayne Industries, and people we all know either never existed at one point or another, or just don't exist beyond the smallest things like a piece of fiction."

"But the way to travel between alternate universes is the same as traveling between parallel universes isn't it," J'onn asked.

"No," Aelita replied. "If anything, it would be more like traveling to other planets in our solar system. Being able to move really fast is a requirement to successfully travel between alternate universes, but it also requires a great deal of power to do so as well. That's why it's usually only possible if someone has incredible powers that could be considered omnipotent, and even then the two universes would have to be very close to one another at some point during their orbit, or at all times in order for it to be truly effective."

"So how did you and Ulrich get from your universe to this one, Aelita," Diana asked.

"We had help," Ulrich replied, and he left at that, likely thinking that going into further detail would make things a little more confusing or something along similar lines.

"As interesting as all of this is, it all just makes me wonder if it will be possible for us to find a way back to our universe," Captain America cut in.

"Relax, Cap. If I'm as smart as your universe's Tony Stark, then I'll probably have an answer to your problem in a few days, minimum, and it'll be even less if I have both Aelita and Hank's help, or if nothing too major happens," Iron Man reassured the super soldier once again.

"Actually Tony, don't you think it would be better if some us stick with the Justice League to make sure they don't get too lost or anything while they're here," Aelita asked, almost sounding like she was begging. "I mean, you and Hank should be more than enough to figure this out, so I would probably just be more in the way than I would be helping."

Tony looked at his pink haired teammate for a minute before smiled and gave a small shrug. "Well I guess you do have a point, and while I'm thinking about it, just to make sure that you guys don't need an Avenger with you at all times when you're in the mansion, you'll probably need these as well."

After he said that, Tony reached into a secret compartment in the Assembly Hall's conference table and pulled out a few different, white card with a decorative letter "A" taking up most of the left side while a small, black box was found in the upper right corner of the card, and he quickly handed them out to the members of the League, aside from Cap. "Uh, why would we need a fancy credit card," Flash inquired.

"They're not credit cards; they're Avengers ID cards," Tony corrected. "They're linked to the Stark Industries satellite network, and they keep all of us in audio and visual communication from anywhere in the world. The main reason I'm giving them to you guys is because they also give you full access and control of the mansion. Everyone on the Avengers has one, and that's why I'm not giving your Captain America one, because our Cap has one already, so while our Cap's out on his mission, yours can just use his ID codes."

"Impressive," John admitted with a small smile.

"Well, if there's nothing else, Hank and I need to get to work on finding a way to get the Justice League back home," Tony finished, waving a hand to dismiss everyone from their little meeting and allowing them to go about their way.

The Leaguers were quick to try and find an Avenger to follow around the mansion until they got a better idea of what was where and what they should and should not touch, but before she could get very far, Hawkgirl suddenly found Aelita standing right in front of her, looking a little nervous for some reason. "Um, Miss Hawkgirl," Aelita asked.

Shayera smiled a little at the girl's sudden attitude towards her before she said, "Just Hawkgirl is fine, kid. Is there something you needed?"

"Well…I was just wondering if you wanted to join me for a quick session in the mansion's training room," Aelita quickly answered.

"Uh, I don't think you really want me to help you workout in the gym," Hawkgirl cautioned.

"Oh this isn't really a gym. It's more like a simulator room that can be a real death chamber for a lot of people, and that's when it's on level one of ten," Aelita quickly clarified. "I just…well, I kinda thought it would be really cool to see you in action in a setting that wasn't so life-threatening. I mean, if that's okay."

Hearing the pinkette's explanation turned Hawkgirl's smile into an excited smirk as she said, "You had me at 'level one of ten'."

That answer immediately brought a bright smile to Aelita's face, and she immediately led Hawkgirl out of the Assembly Hall to the training room, with her brother watching them go with a smirk on his face, while Green Lantern had a worried look on his. "Really hope they don't have any sparring matches down there," John muttered.

When Ulrich heard him saying that, his smirk grew a little more as he said, "If I were you, I'd be more concerned about what would happen to Hawkgirl if that came about than I would be about what would happen to Aelita."

"And why's that," John asked, skepticism clear in his voice and on his face.

"Let's just say that Aelita is a lot tougher than she looks, and that when she gets mad, even the Hulk is afraid of her," Ulrich replied, knowingly.

That comment was enough to make Lantern a little scared, but in the end, he figured that he did not want to know what events had led to learning something like that, and just nodded before following both Ulrich and Carol out of the room to the elevator.

* * *

A few hours later saw Aelita and Hawkgirl entering the main floor of the mansion where a majority of the other heroes were all currently gathered for one reason or another, and Aelita was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement, much to Hawkgirl's amusement. The two had spent a great deal of time down the training room together, each trying to either show off their skills or outdo the other for no other reason than just for the fun of it, and if she were being honest, it was the first time that Shayera had really enjoyed doing that kind of thing in a long time. Of course, that fun was only further enhanced by the fact that Aelita seemed to light up like a Christmas tree every time she saw Shayera do something pretty impressive, to put it mildly. Sure, the pinkette did a rather impressive job of concealing it most of the time for obvious reasons, but Shayera was easily able to pick up on the signs that showed the younger girl's excitement. It was a little curious, but she did not really have a time to question Aelita on it at all during their run in the training room, mostly because the pinkette was now kidding about how tough those simulations were at each of their difficulty levels when she had mentioned it earlier. This new break from the action, while a bit welcome since Shayera actually had tired herself out a little, served to finally give her a chance to ask.

"You seem like you really enjoyed yourself," Shayera remarked, going for an easy icebreaker.

"Well, you know what they say about sometimes needing to hit something in order to relieve a bit of stress," Aelita shrugged like it was no big deal. "Sometimes having to constantly save the world does get to be a little irritating, even for someone who's been doing it since they were in Junior High."

The winged Leaguer gave an agreeable nod to that point, but she still continued to press on. "Well, from my perspective, that was a lot more than just getting some pent up anxiety out."

It seemed that Aelita was catching on to what Hawkgirl was asking, because she started to nervously fidget a little before she glanced around like she was making sure that no one was listening in. "Promise not to laugh or be weirded out," Aelita requested once she was sure they were in the clear.

"I'll do my best," Shayera nodded.

Aelita took a deep breath in response and then revealed, "Well…that's mostly because out of all the heroes on the Justice League or in those comics…you're actually my favorite, and not just because we're both girls who can fly with cool wings. I mean, that's a pretty big contributing factor, but you're also depicted as this tough-as-nails woman who doesn't take crap from anyone, and who would bravely throw herself into danger no matter what the consequences. To be honest, I kinda wish I was a lot like you, because a lot of times, when I'm out there saving the world, despite what I can do, I'm really scared out of my mind about what might happen. Not just to me, but to everyone else around me, especially in the case of the people most important to me."

Shayera did not laugh or feel the least bit weirded out by this confession. If anything, she was extremely flattered. This young woman, who seemed to be capable of so much, both as a hero and as a person, honestly looked up to her because she thought that she needed to be more like the fearless Hawkgirl. Seeing this prompted Shayera's softer side to make an appearance, and she was soon placing a hand on Aelita's shoulder as she spoke. "Hey, you want to know a little secret? When I'm out there fighting, despite how I typically charge in headfirst and ready to start swinging, I'm actually a little scared myself. After all, most humans aren't able to take the kind of punishment I can dish out. If you ask me, just based off what I've seen so far, you're actually a lot tougher than you seem to give yourself credit for. I guess you could say that I'm starting to become a big fan of yours just like you're a big fan of me."

If the smile on Aelita's face could have lit up any more, she probably would have blinded everyone in New York by now. After all, it was not every day that you get to hear such compliments from your hero, and that ended up being reason enough for Aelita to immediately surprise Hawkgirl with big hug of thanks. It was a little awkward at first, partly because of Shayera's wings, and partly because the redhead was not used to receiving such gestures from others like this, but after a minute, Shayera did eventually return the younger woman's hug. "Thanks for that Hawkgirl," Aelita said as evenly as she could, but there was no way she could have kept the excitement and happiness out of her voice even if she were to try all that hard.

"Not a problem, Aelita. Just a couple of things," Hawkgirl said. "First, you tell Flash about this, and you'll be getting a much closer look at my mace."

"No problem. Keeping secrets is something that I've become a bit of a seasoned pro at," Aelita smirked in reply. "And the other thing?"

"You can just call me Shayera if you want," Hawkgirl stated with a smile.

Aelita happily nodded in reply to that and quickly returned to leading the way to the lounge. As they were going, Aelita eventually felt the need to remove the visor over her eyes, leading Hawkgirl to get a small surprise when she saw that the pinkette's eyes were now a different color than the last time she had seen them. Aelita took notice of the shocked look on Shayera's face, and immediately figured out the reason for it. "You're a bit thrown off by the color of my eyes, aren't you?"

"Well…yeah," Hawkgirl admitted. "I mean, the last time I saw them, I thought for sure that they were a shade of hazel or something."

"Don't worry about it too much. I understand," Aelita reassured. "You see, when I change into my Angel Guardian attire, my eyes actually change from their normal green color to hazel. It helps a bit more with concealing my identity, but I still wear the visor while I'm wearing this outfit in public because I don't want people starting to connect the dots and figuring out that Aelita Stern is Angel Guardian."

Hawkgirl nodded in understanding of this and let the matter drop with that. It was at that same moment that they finally came into the lounge, where they spotted Green Lantern and Ulrich were lounging on one of the sofas as the younger of the two recounted a tale from his and Aelita's past adventures to the former marine, while Ms. Marvel and Captain America were exchanging war stories, mostly so that the super soldier could learn about a few more differences between him and this dimension's Captain America. One thing that caught both of the girls' attention when they walked in was that John was throwing some wary looks in Ms. Marvel's direction, while Ulrich was giving Cap some glances that were a little less harsh yet still started off as being rather heated before they calmed down a little, almost as if he was struggling to remember that this Captain America was not the one that he had known for a while now.

The two women with wings quickly exchanged a glance between them before they made their way over to the Lantern and the Samurai, and upon reaching them, Aelita was the first to voice a question. "So, where's everyone else right now?"

"I saw T'Challa go off somewhere with Martian Manhunter…uh, you guys do call J'onn that, right," Ulrich started to say before looking to the two Leaguers, who both nodded in reply, prompting him to continue on. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure I heard him say that he wanted to compare some of his meditation techniques with the ones that J'onn said that Martians would normally use."

"I didn't know J'onn meditated," Hawkgirl commented.

"Apparently it's something that all Martians learn to do when their telepathy first kicks in," John revealed. "And I think Diana went somewhere with Wasp a little while ago after Cap asked her to give the princess a few lessons on fashion."

"Yeah, they're gonna gone for a while," Aelita remarked with a smile. She then decided to address the elephant that was clearly in the room here. "So, is there any particular reason why you're looking at Carol like she's going to suddenly fly off the handle at any moment?"

John was about to protest and say that he was doing no such thing, but something about the look that Aelita was giving him clearly told him that saying any such thing was not the wisest course of action. Thinking that neither of the two would really understand his reasons, he decided to question them on something that had been bothering him for a while now. "How about you tell us why you both seem to be looking at Cap like you don't trust him before remembering that he's our Captain America?"

 _Well played_ , Ulrich thought to himself, knowing that John had managed to dodge the question by redirecting the conversation onto them. Unfortunately for the Earth Green Lantern, he did not know either of the two Lyoko Warriors too well, so he did not know that they were willing to play that game if it got them the answers they were looking for. After glancing around for a minute to see if anyone was listening in, Ulrich softly revealed, "We've been noticing some things about our Cap that have been severely out of character for him in one way or another, and it's started getting us both a little worried."

"I'm guessing that it has something to do with that incident at the UN Building you mentioned back at Stark Tower," Hawkgirl asked.

"You'd guess right," Aelita confirmed. "It was a pretty tense situation, but there was still a chance that we could've talked things out and avoided a fight. That possibility went up in smoke when Cap fired the first shot by tossing his new energy shield at Ronan out of nowhere, and apparently for no reason other than the fact that, I quote, 'they were hostiles'."

"Plus, he was pretty confrontational towards the Kree the minute we had arrived on the scene, acting like he didn't want to waste time trying to talk and just take them down right away," Ulrich added.

"That doesn't really sound like Captain America," John commented. "At least not in the case of our Captain America."

"Our thoughts exactly, because it doesn't seem like how our Captain America normally is either," Aelita nodded. "And there have been a couple of other instances by now that have us even more suspicious of him lately or that there's something going on that he doesn't want us to know about. At first I figured it was mostly because of what had happened in Asgard, but now, I'm not so sure."

"Have you told anyone about this," Hawkgirl asked. She knew that it was probably a stupid question, given that the two were both looking around to make sure no one was listening in, but it still needed to be asked.

"No, and for good reasons too," Ulrich replied. "For starters, the Avengers are like a second family to the two of us, so we'd prefer not to think that something bad has happened to any of them or that something has caused them to change in a bad way. The other reason is that even without that fact, we're a pretty tight-knit group, so if we want to go accusing anyone of anything, we should at least have something to base our suspicions off of besides hearsay."

"That does make sense," John nodded, seeing the logic in the two's arguments.

"And given what we know about you from what we've read in comics and such, I'd like to think you wouldn't be looking at Carol the way you have been without a good reason either," Aelita finished for her brother, drawing the conversation back onto its original topic.

John had not expected that, but part of him felt like he should have seen that coming, so he finally relented and revealed what exactly his problem with Ms. Marvel was. "I've seen a lot of the horrors that the Kree have committed back in my universe, and been on the receiving end of it at times too. In fact, I've seen enough of all that to know that you can't trust a Kree, with only one exception: Captain Marvel."

"Oh, so we both have Captain Marvel, and in your universe you can actually trust him. That's…something," Ulrich commented, drawing confused looks from both of the two Leaguers.

"Our Captain Marvel said he was going to convince the Kree to not target Earth for an invasion, and yet almost a year later, he came back as part of the invasion force, asking us to surrender to the Kree because he had convinced their leaders that Earth was a scientific anomaly that needed to be studied or something like that," Aelita explained. "More to the point, you do know that Carol is only half-Kree, right? I'm pretty sure we mentioned that earlier."

"Uh…no, I don't think you did," John replied. Ulrich and Aelita both had the decency to look sheepish at that remark, until John added, "But to be fair, none of you knew that I had a problem with the Kree until just now, so it makes sense that it wouldn't have come up before. I just have to know one thing: how did it happen?"

"Now that is a very interesting story," Ulrich started to say, but he was quickly brought to a halt when Iron Man suddenly came running into the room.

"Angel, we've gotta get downtown on the double," Iron Man stated, his helmet's mask snapping closed as he came in.

"Why? What's going on," Aelita asked.

"Mandarin's just showed up in that area and is attacking the populace," Iron Man revealed.

"Anything we can do to help," John asked.

"No, don't worry about it. Aelita and I should be able to handle it just fine, and besides, Wasp and Wonder Woman are already in the area along with a certain web-head," Iron Man revealed.

Aelita was on her feet and activating her suit the minute she heard that last part, and once it was on, she was flying out the door so fast that one would think that she was the one with super speed instead of her brother. Iron Man just shrugged and took off after her, leaving Ulrich to explain his adopted sister's urgency to the surprised Leaguers. "She's really protective of her boyfriend, and pretty much everyone she cares deeply about in general," Ulrich stated.

"But why would her boyfriend be in the middle of a fight with Mandarin," Captain America asked.

"Oh, that's because her boyfriend is Spider-Man," Ulrich replied.

"And you guys also have Spider-Man in this universe. I don't know how to feel about that," Green Lantern muttered, drawing an amused look onto Ulrich's face when he heard that, because that pretty much confirmed that Spidey was pretty constant in some areas in the multiverse.

* * *

"Somehow, I'm not really all that surprised that what was supposed to be a casual trip to the mall so that I could teach you about modern fashion, at least in this universe, ended up turning into this," Wasp commented to Diana as she flew around the area, stingers blazing in an attempt to strike back and avoid the blasts that Mandarin was throwing at them.

"And yet, you don't sound too disappointed," Wonder Woman commented as she deflected some of those same blasts with her bracelets, while making sure that this universe's Spider-Man was able to stay ahead of Mandarin.

On the subject of this version of the web-swinger, it seemed that Spider-Man was still rather quick-witted and a bit of a wise-cracker in this universe, but he had a bit less of an edge to him than her universe's Spidey did. Really, the only thing that Diana could really see in terms of differences at the moment was the fact that he wore a different version of the suit. It was still red and blue with a spider-emblem on the front and back of the shirt, with web patterns on the red portions of the suit, but unlike her universe's Spider-Man, this one's outfit was a brighter shade of red and blue, and the spider emblem on the front did not match the one on the back, and neither one of said spider-emblems had lower legs that were longer than the upper ones. The spider-emblem on the front was small and black with a total of four legs, while the one on his back was circular, red and took up most of the blue portion on his back with six, small legs in total. It may not have been much of a difference, but it was still enough to be a stark contrast to the suit that was worn by the Spider-Man that the Justice League knew.

What she was more concerned with at the moment though, was the black-armored figure that they were fighting against, who seemed to be drawing from one if not all of the ten rings that he wore on each finger. Diana had long since heard of the Mandarin, including the fact that he was one of Iron Man's greatest enemies back in her dimension, but this was the first time she had ever encountered him in person. Even if he was a different version of Mandarin, he was still clearly just as dangerous and deadly as the one from her universe, and that made her feel a little worried. Back in her universe, she had once heard that only Iron Man had ever managed to defeat Mandarin all on his own, and that Superman had once had trouble besting the ring-wearing villain, so she doubted that anyone would really fault her for being concerned about her chances of coming out of this fight in one piece, even with help from Wasp and Spider-Man.

Thankfully, the three fighting Mandarin soon became five, when Aelita swooped in and fired off an energy field that sent Mandarin flying away from Spider-Man, who he had somehow managed to temporarily throw off balance, and the black armored villain soon found that his new flight path had sent him right into Iron Man's line of fire when the armored Avenger let loose a powerful repulsor blast that sent him into the pavement below him. If anyone was expecting the rest of the Avengers to show up, they were severely disappointed, because there was no sign of the others anywhere. Still, it did not hurt to ask, and Spider-Man made that point clear.

"Please tell me the rest of your team is on their way, or that at least your brother is coming," Spidey asked Angel Guardian as she helped him to his feet.

"Sorry, but it's just me and Iron Man for this one, sweetie, or am I not good enough for you," Aelita quipped in reply with an expression of false irritation finding its way to her face at the end.

"Since when have I ever indicated that you were anything but the best in my life," Spidey easily replied with a slightly flirtatious tone, earning him a giggle from the pink haired Lyoko Avenger.

"Hey you guys! Flirt on your own time, fight the big bad guy on ours," Wasp called out as she swooped down with stingers charged, Wonder Woman flying in to attack Mandarin right behind her.

"Reinforcements will not save you from my wrath, Avenger, not even if they are my greatest foe and one of the few to have earned my attention aside from him," Mandarin mocked as he rose to his feet again, and he was soon raising a hand forward and shooting out a stream of water that quickly encompassed Wasp inside of a spherical water prison, immediately reminding some of the heroes of something they saw in a certain anime once.

Wasp did not remain in that watery prison for long, because Mandarin was soon knocked off his feet by a hard hit from Wonder Woman, disrupting his concentration, and Spider-Man was quick to catch Wasp as she dropped from her former prison just before she could hit the ground. After coughing for a few seconds to get any excess water out of her system, Wasp was on her feet again and flying towards Mandarin as fast as she could. Mandarin did not register the small-sized hero's approach at all, thanks to the barrage of energy blasts that Iron Man and Angel Guardian were throwing at him, and by the time he did, she was already increasing her size to the point where she became Giant-Woman, and easily kicked him as hard as she could like he were nothing more than a soccer ball. Before he got too far into the air, Wonder Woman had flown up behind him and knocked him back with a hard punch, setting Giant-Woman up so that she could slap him down to the ground hard enough to crater the pavement below.

Mandarin could only groan in pain as he lifted himself up onto all-fours, only to pause both because Iron Man and Angel Guardian were now standing over him with their respective energy attacks ready, and because Spider-Man had quickly fired a number of webs onto his feet and hands so that he could not get up off the ground completely. "Looks like we've finally got you, Mandarin," Iron Man confidently stated. "Do yourself a favor, and just accept that you've been beat."

"Never," Mandarin snarled. "None can ever hope to truly defeat the Mandarin. Mark my words, Stark, you, the Lyoko Warriors, and all of your allies will soon know the true full extent of my…"

Whatever Mandarin was saying ended up being left unfinished, because before he could say another word, a strange, greenish-blue glow suddenly encompassed him completely, and it continued to glow brighter until all of the heroes were forced to look away. When they were finally able to look directly at where Mandarin was supposed to be again, the only signs of him being there were the webs that Spider-Man had used to tie him down, and the crater he had been in, much to everyone's confusion. After glancing around for a moment in silence, Diana finally asked, "Does that normally happen around here?"

"Considering that we haven't dealt with anything involving Asgard in a long time, no, it doesn't, and that's a bad thing," Aelita replied.

"Iron Man to Avengers Mansion. We were able to subdue Mandarin, but something or someone suddenly teleported him away before we could bring him in or start another round with him. Hank, I'm sending you a trace of the energy signature my armor picked up just before he was teleported. See if you can track it," the Avengers leader reported over his helmet's comm. device. The immediate reply he had expected did not come though, and after a couple of minutes had passed with similar silence, he started to get worried. "Hank? Are you there?"

"And that's an even worse sign, be it back in the glory days of the Lyoko Warriors or now," Aelita muttered.

Eventually, they did get a reply from Hank, but it was not one that they were hoping for or expecting. Instead, it was much more panicked and distressing. _"Tony, Aelita, we're under attack! You've gotta get back here now! The others are fighting…"_

"Hank?! Hank! What's going on?! Who're the others fighting," Iron Man demanded with nearly as much panic, only to receive silence in reply. He immediately turned to the others and made it clear what they were going to do now. "We're getting back to the mansion, yesterday."

No one disagreed, and Wonder Woman and the Avengers were all soon flying back to the mansion in the hopes of helping their friends, while Spider-Man stayed back to make sure that everyone was okay and to help with the clean-up from the battle that had just taken place in the streets. Of course, Aelita did have to pause for a moment to give her boyfriend a quick kiss goodbye before she followed, but that did not mean her pace was any slower than the others.

* * *

It was actually just a few minutes after Iron Man and Aelita had left that things at Avengers Mansion had started to go straight to Hell. Ulrich had decided that he should at least try to convince Green Lantern to talk with Carol for a minute, because he could tell that his blonde teammate was actually a little upset by John's previous attitude towards her. Helping him to find out that Carol was only half-Kree did help improve said mood a little bit, but in reality, it seemed like it really just made John confused on how he should react towards her than anything else. Before he could say anything though, a strange vortex suddenly opened up that was weirdly familiar to Ulrich. He found out why only a minute later when a figure casually stepped through like it was just a normal doorway and he was quickly on his feet preparing to fight once said figure had fully entered the room.

The large man before the group appeared to have blue skin, judging by his face, which was the only part of his body that was visible at the moment, small, blank white eyes, and wore a green and dark purple outfit that seemed a lot like some form of armor, along with a purple helmet. Hawkgirl, Captain America, and Green Lantern could only quirk an eyebrow in confusion at the sudden appearance of this man, but when they saw how Ms. Marvel and Sprint Samurai were both gearing up and preparing for battle, they could only assume that he was not a friendly individual, to put it mildly. "Kang," Ulrich snarled as he pointed a saber towards the intruder. "I don't know how you're here…actually, I do have some idea, but I know for a fact that you'll be going right back into a prison cell where you belong."

Kang just looked at Ulrich for a minute before he chuckled in response. "You assume that I am the feeble fool that you and your fellow Avengers defeated? Amusing."

That comment drew confused looks from the two Avengers, but a quick moment of silent communication between them immediately prompted Carol to do what she could to keep Kang talking while Ulrich discreetly signaled the rest of their team for backup. "What do you mean that you're not the Kang we fought?"

"Just as I said, Avenger. Just as there are many paths in the timeline, there are also many different Kangs to conquer them," the man before them stated. "But you should rest easy and stand aside. I am not here for you or your team. To be entirely honest, I could care less about what actions you take here, since they do not affect my timeline in the least."

"Then why are you here?"

"I am here to correct an error that has come about in the multiverse, and to ensure my greatest opposition in my own timeline never rises to its full power again. Simply put, I am here for them, and their comrades," Kang replied, pointing towards the Justice Leaguers in the room as he finished.

That comment did not sit well with any of the Leaguers in the room, and even less so with the Avengers that were also present at the moment, because seconds after Kang had spoken, the latter two were immediately charging into action. Whatever damage they had hoped to inflict against Kang, none of the League could really have said for sure, because by the time they were within striking range, Kang had raised a force field around him without so much as batting an eye, and their strikes were easily intercepted. Ms. Marvel's attack had the added effect of blasting her back into the wall, but Sprint Samurai was able to get on his feet and start running before he could meet a similar fate, and he ran straight towards Kang. The blue man just smirked as Ulrich's sabers swung rapidly at him, each being intercepted by a small force field that only manifested between him and the sabers long enough to block the strikes, and he then batted Ulrich away with a simple sweep of his arm.

Kang's strike only cause Ulrich to stumble for a moment, but before he could charge again, Kang raised an arm towards him, and allowed what looked like a holographic ring to form around his hand, which he began firing a series of laser blasts from. This had clearly been something that Ulrich was not expecting, as evidenced by the shocked look on his face as he quickly started trying to deflect the rapid array of laser blasts with his sabers while he muttered, "Okay, that's new."

Ulrich's moment of distraction ended up costing him, as Kang's barrage soon made it past Ulrich's guard, and struck him in the leg, allowing Kang the chance to land another few shots to his chest that sent him stumbling back with a small cry of pain. What shocked the Leaguers was the fact that the points on Ulrich's suit where he had been hit by the shots appeared to be fizzling in and out like the picture on a bad T.V. screen, and the fact that the kid was groaning in pain similar to how Superman would react when he was exposed to kryptonite. Seeing Ulrich in such a state prompted the League into action, with Captain America making the first move by throwing his shield at Kang, forcing the man in strange armor to stumble away from Ulrich. "You okay, soldier," Cap asked as he caught his shield on its return trip and knelt down to help Ulrich to his feet.

"Yeah. He just scratched me," Ulrich reassured the super soldier as he managed to get back on his feet, his suit returning to its normal state as he did. "Forgot for a second that Kang's one of the few people that can actually get past the protection that mine and Sis' suits give us."

"Well then I say we show him why coming into a mansion full of heroes looking for a fight is a bad idea," Hawkgirl said, and she was soon flying towards Kang with her mace ready for action. She just missed Ulrich's cry to wait, but that was only partially due to the fact that she was already on the move. The rest of the reason why was because Kang used the energy weapon he formed around his wrist to try and blast Hawkgirl, and while she was able to deflect the blasts with her mace, she was unable to do anything when the weapon suddenly extended towards her like some sort of energy tentacle, and then grabbed her while in mid-charge.

Hawkgirl was then thrown right into the charging Ms. Marvel, sending both heroines into another wall, and leaving Green Lantern with a belated opening for his own attempt at attacking the man. John was quickly surprised when his blast suddenly disappeared into what looked like a wormhole that appeared right in front of Kang, but not as surprised as he was when said blast came out of another wormhole that had appeared directly behind Ulrich and struck him just as the samurai Avenger was preparing to charge. Ulrich was not hurt thanks to his suit's protection, but he would be lying if he said that it was not at least a little painful, and that was all the reason that Lantern and Captain America needed to switch to a more up-close approach against this man. That turned out to be just as ill-advised, as the man soon proved that he was much more capable of fighting even without the extra assistance of technology than either of the two had originally expected, and they were soon blasted away as well.

When John started to rise, he eventually found himself looking up to see that Kang was standing over him with a smug smirk on his face. "It's almost amusing. You actually remind me a little of the last Green Lantern I had killed. Though he did put up more of a fight than you have," Kang openly mocked as he raised his weapon to fire on John.

Just before Kang could fire his weapon, the Green Lantern of Earth was whisked away by a red streak that could only have been one hero, and that hero was eventually racing around Kang as fast as he could while throwing out several high-speed punches in an attempt to hit him. While not all of the attacks connected, thanks to Kang's force field, some of them were able to get through, and that was enough to cause Kang to stumble a little. After regaining his balance, Kang tapped a control on his belt that seemed to cause everything around him to suddenly slow down, and while the red blur that had been attacking him continued to move at a pace that was almost normal, he was still just slow enough for Kang to properly retaliate, and soon enough, Flash had fallen victim to the simple-looking, yet clearly very versatile and deadly weapon as a result. Flash did not let that keep him down for long, because the fastest man alive was soon on his feet again and racing around Kang at an incredibly fast pace. After a few more minutes of running, Flash finally gathered up the energy that he released while he was running, and launched it towards Kang as a lightning bolt. If that had been unexpected for anyone, what was even more unexpected was for Kang to actually spin over the lightning bolt and actually throw it right back at Flash, causing him to be blasted away by his own attack, much to his shock.

"Did anyone else just see that," Flash gasped in surprise.

 _"See you throw out a lightning bolt after running really fast, or see Kang actually catch it and throw it back at you like it was a simple spear? Either way, the answer is yes,"_ Hank replied from over the mansion's comm. system. The former superhero had turned all of his attention to what was going on upstairs just seconds after Ulrich had sent out the alert to the rest of them, and was now watching everything happen from down in his lab while trying to contact the rest of the team for help, but for some reason, most of his signals did not seem to be getting through, and he could only assume that the reason for it was Kang.

Flash was unable to say anything in reply, because before he could, he was suddenly being lifted up into the air by the scruff of his neck by Kang, who was now madly grinning at him. "The original speedster, himself, and one of the fools who think that the best way to travel through time is by simply running really fast. I feel as though I should be honored, and yet, I find it more disappointing than anything else. Though I must admit, I am a little impressed by your skills at channeling the electrical energy of the Speed Force. It seems that Zolomon taught you well when he revealed that trick was possible to you. Or was it Thawne who did that? I can honestly not really remember which seeing as there seem to be so many speedsters who wish to end you."

Hearing the names of two of his greatest enemies being mentioned by this man immediately threw Flash for a loop, and he could not help but gasp, "How do you…?"

"Who do you think first taught the Reverse Flash that it was possible to travel through time through the use of the Speed Force, or Zoom how to create a Time Remnant," Kang rhetorically asked. "Still, they both pale in comparison to the master of time."

Any further boasting was cut off when something sharp suddenly slashed Kang across his back, and he immediately spun around to see Black Panther flipping away, while Martian Manhunter phased up from the floor to deliver a very hard uppercut to Kang's jaw. The Martian's attack forced Kang to release Flash from his grasp, and the speedster was quick to join the others in gathering together for another attack. Kang glanced around the room for a minute before he smirked a little and dismissed his weapon. "Savor this moment, heroes, if you can survive the toys that I'll be leaving for you to play with," Kang stated, and a second later, a portal opened behind him, which he soon vanished into, while a number of humanoid machines with armor similar to his and very advanced looking weapons suddenly jumped out.

Hawkgirl was about to chase after Kang, but a barrage of energy blasts prevent her from getting anywhere near the portal before it had closed. "Let him go for now. We've got other problems to deal with at the moment. Now I don't know about you guys, but I'd like to get this scum out of our house, right now," Ulrich stated. "Avengers, take 'em down!"

"Justice League, let's give them a hand," Captain America ordered, and soon enough, the two teams were engaging the invading forces with their full force.

 _"Guys, I finally got through to Iron Man. He and the others are on their way back right now,"_ Hank eventually said over the teams' comm. devices.

"Well they'd better hurry," Ms. Marvel commented as she blasted another robot apart, and no one disagreed with her on that sentiment. This was likely going to take a while. The whole time though, the Justice League could not help but wonder just who was it that they had been fighting a moment ago, and why was he after them.

* * *

It was somewhere on the outskirts of New York City, in an abandoned warehouse, that Mandarin had finally reappeared mere minutes after he had been whisked away from his battle against Iron Man, Angel Guardian, Wasp, Spider-Man, and the lady who looked like Wonder Woman, and when he did reappear in said location, he was immediately looking around in confusion, with both sets of his rings blazing to life, ready to be used on whoever dared to interfere. "Who dares to meddle in the Mandarin's affairs? Show yourself," the wielder of the Makluan Rings shouted.

"There is no need for such violence, Mandarin. After all, I am an ally," a voice answered, and the black armored villain immediately spun to where it had come from, only to gasp in shock at who he saw standing before him.

"Kang the Conqueror," Mandarin gasped in slight awe. "How did you escape from the prison facility that the Avengers assisted S.H.I.E.L.D. in creating?"

"Well, this is now the second time someone has mistaken me for my counterpart in this universe," Kang commented. "You are correct in referring to me as Kang, but I am not the Kang that you know of."

Now Mandarin was intrigued, but that did not mean he was willing to drop his guard. "Explain now, and tell me why you have brought me here."

"I am the Kang of another universe, and in my universe's timeline, six of the world's greatest heroes were said to have disappeared after a great battle and never returned. I intend to ensure that they never do. But in order to do so, I find myself requiring your assistance," Kang explained, swiftly answering both of Mandarin's questions at once.

"Why should I care about what happens in another universe when I have my own concerns to deal with in this one," Mandarin questioned.

"Because you have already faced them just a moment ago," Kang revealed. "Surely you noticed that one of the heroes you fought was dressed as Wonder Woman. What you did not know then, is that she is indeed the genuine article, and she is here with other members from my universe's Justice League, which includes the Captain America of that same universe. I had traveled to where most of the League had been gathered at the time in the hopes of eliminating them right away, but what I had not counted on was…"

"That they would have allied themselves with the Avengers," Kang finished for the time traveler. "That's why you require my assistance. You believe that we can end both groups together."

"But of course. With the vast power you possess while wielding all ten Makluan Rings, and my own technology, our combined abilities will allow us to destroy both the Avengers of this world and the Justice League of the world I come from. Once that is done, we will part ways and go about our business."

Mandarin considered these words for a moment, because he had to admit that Kang did make a good point. He was confident that he would have been able to take the Avengers if they were on their own, but with the Justice League providing them support, his chances became much more slim. Then again, the fact that the comic book team of heroes was here at all was rather ludicrous, and this Kang before him was the one that the world already knew and had gone even more insane than he already was before. It was hard to deny any of these facts, but still, the benefits outweighed the downsides to working with him, so there was only one answer that Mandarin could give. "It would seem that we have an accord."

* * *

 ** _AN: Sorry to leave you guys hanging like this, because I really wanted to make the whole thing one chapter. The problem with that is actually two-fold. The first reason is because an adventure like this can't be contained into one chapter like some of the last few adventures were, and the second reason is that the chapter was just starting to get way too long for my liking as it is. Really, think of this as something that introduces the League to their situation and the heroes from the world of the Code Avengers Series. Oh, speaking of which, yes the heroes of the Justice League are in the world of my other story series, Code Avengers, specifically at a point during the adventures of Code Avengers: Cosmic, as you've probably figured out by now if you've read both this story and those ones._**

 ** _Now I really must confess, a lot of the stuff that has taken place here so far was actually inspired in part by the events of the episode entitled "World's Finest" from Season 1 of Supergirl, the episode in which the Girl of Steel teamed up with the Barry Allen from the world of The Flash. If you've seen either one of those series, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, and let me just say, that I couldn't resist using some of those moments here in this chapter because they were so good. Another thing that was borrowed from one of those two series was Flash's explanation about parallel worlds. Aelita's explanation about alternate worlds was actually my own thing. That was completely original, and I tried to keep it as simple as I possibly could, so sorry if anyone was confused by it, but that really was the best I could do. I'm sure some of you picked up on a few other references to events from The Flash, but I'm not going to waste your time pointing them out to you._**

 ** _Finally, one of the hardest parts when planning out this chapter was coming up with a good villain for the two teams to fight against, and it had to be someone from the Code Avengers world. At least that was the original plan. Part of the reason it was hard doing so was because by this point in the Code Avengers story, a lot of the really major bad guys have already been beaten and locked up by the Avengers or they just haven't shown up yet. Thankfully, it did give me a chance to bring that story's Mandarin back into the forefront of the action, but while I was thinking it out, I found myself remembering a few things about Kang, namely the fact that he's a time-traveler and about the whole Council of Kangs, as in there being more than one of the guy. With that in mind, I figured it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have the Kang that would exist in the Justice Marvel universe suddenly find his way into the one that the Leaguers are currently stuck in, all to carry out some devious plot, and if you've seen what Mandarin was capable of when he has all ten of his rings in a few different Iron Man series, then you know why this would be a perfect bad guy team-up for this adventure._**

 ** _On the subject of Kang, I wanted to make sure that he was as different from the Code Avengers version as possible, so while his appearance is still similar, his abilities are really more akin to that of the Kang from Avengers: Ultron Revolution. If you haven't seen that series yet, I suggest you go and watch it right away. Also, if anyone knows what the heck that thing is that version of Kang uses as his primary weapon, please tell me, because I am not entirely sure what to call it._**

 ** _Well, that's all for now, so let's move Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _After the chaos at the mansion has settled, the Justice League learn about the enemy that they had just encountered from the Avengers, and the two teams find themselves forming a few theories in regards to Kang and the likelihood that he had now allied himself with Mandarin. With the new knowledge that they find presented to themselves, the two teams find that they must work together in order to stop both of these enemies if they wish to save New York, and both of their worlds from the horror that the two powerful villains will unleash if they are not stopped. The lyokoMARVELanime special crossover event continues next time in…_** **Chapter 12: Heroes Assembled** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	13. Heroes Assembled

_**AN: Hello one and all! Hope your ready for more action with our resident Justice League &Captain America crossover, 'cause its time for the epic conclusion of the lyokoMARVELanime special crossover event!**_

 _ **Diana: Does anyone else feel like that's a bit of a mouthful?  
**_

 _ **Flash: Yep. I'm pretty sure that's what we're all thinking.**_

 ** _Everyone else: [nods in agreement]_**

 ** _AN: Well it's not like I'm going to being mentioning it again, 'cause again, this is the conclusion of the crossover with the Code Avengers series. Any-who, I would've had this up sooner, but stuff happened, such as technical difficulties, posting of a new story, but then, something really incredible happened. The premiere of The CW's 4 night crossover event, Heroes vs. Aliens, which includes the four shows of Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow! Seriously, did you guys see that? Cause if you didn't, you missed out, and it. Was. AWESOME! And then a week later, we saw the awesome mid-season finales of The Flash, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow, which were just as equally awesome! Seriously, you'd have to have seen them for yourself to just get an IDEA of how incredibly, spectacularly, amazingly awesome all of those were! Add in the mid-season finale of Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D., and how could I not think about posting something a new chapter for this story!_**

 ** _Captain America: Okay, I think they get the point soldier._**

 ** _AN: Right, right. Okay, I...I think I'm all good now. But just in case, before I go into another fan-freak-out, witness the events of this newest chapter, and the adventures that are now about to unfold, as we see a true uniting of the heroes of Justice Marvel and Code Avengers!_**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 12: Heroes Assembled**

Even though the combined forces of the Avengers and the Justice League were indeed powerful, it was not until after Iron Man, Wasp, Angel Guardian, and Diana finally got back that they were able to finally finish off the last of the robots that Kang had left for them. Afterwards it was just a matter of cleaning up the mess that had been made by the battle, something that none of them were really too fond of even with J.A.R.V.S.'s help, but it was still necessary, especially since Hank wanted to study one of the robots so he could learn more about this Kang's tech. The entire time though, the League had not been able to get any answers from the Avengers as to how they knew of this being that had attacked them, but each time they did, the Avengers all said that they would explain after they had straightened out and repaired the mansion, so it was not until about a few hours later when they were all gathered in the Assembly Hall once again that the League finally got some answers.

"So exactly who was that guy, and how did you know him," John asked, his patience already waning after being forced to wait this long.

In response, Tony pulled up a three-dimensional image on the holo-projector in the table of the man who had just attacked them, although this time around, the Leaguers could see a few differences between the image before them and the man that they had encountered earlier. "Kang the Conqueror is a time traveler from the Forty First Century that the Avengers fought about half a year ago, and apparently, he's the ruler of both the world and the universe in his time, but something from our era caused his timeline to be wiped out, and forced him to come back to our century so that he could prevent it from happening."

"What would force him to come back here," Diana asked.

"Apparently, his timeline was wiped out and he figured that the reason for that was Aelita, Ulrich, and our Captain America, so he came back to 'fix the problem,'" Wasp replied.

"She basically means that he wanted to kill the three of us so that he would prevent us from possibly doing something that would destroy the world at some point in the near future," Ulrich clarified.

"And that was just the beginning," Aelita picked up. "Kang knew that the war between the Kree and the Skrull was going to come to Earth, so in order to keep Earth safe, he planned to give us advanced, future technology that would make Earth's military forces ready for when they came."

"I'm guessing he wasn't going to do this out of the goodness of his heart," Hawkgirl stated.

"Well the guy's name is Kang the Conqueror, so I don't think the words 'peaceful negotiation' exist in his vocabulary," Carol pointed out.

"Kang intended to conquer our world so that he would already rule our world by the time the war between the Kree and Skrull came here, and he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goals," T'Challa finished.

"In the end though, the Avengers managed to stop him, but we couldn't risk sending Kang's ship back to where, or rather when it came from," Tony finished. "If we did, we would've ended up killing the woman that Kang loved."

"Perhaps you can explain why that was the case," J'onn asked.

"It's a long story," Hank replied. "And in point of fact, our Kang is still currently locked up in Forty-Two, so I can't say how it is that he showed up before us."

"Well if he is a time traveler, maybe it was just him from another point in time," Diana suggested.

"I don't think so," John argued. "He said he came here for us, the League specifically, so if this was another Kang, I don't think it was from any point in this timeline."

"Lantern's right; this guy is definitely from our world," Flash nodded. "He mentioned two of my old enemies who had been able to master using the Speed Force for time-based abilities."

"If he came here to destroy us, then does that mean that he's doing something back in our world," Hawkgirl asked.

"It could be," Ulrich nodded. "Kang has access to entire armies and fleets of ships in his time, and he can bring all of them into any era that he wants in an instant, so he's probably already started something of an initial invasion of your world, and since the Justice League is the greatest threat to whatever plans he may have in your world…"

"Then it would make sense that he would come here to try and defeat us," J'onn finished.

"If that is the case, then we need to get back quickly," John said.

"Hang on," Tony said. "There's something else you need to know. When Wonder Woman, Wasp, Aelita and I were out fighting Mandarin, he disappeared in an instant, and it was not in the way that he normally teleports. After looking back at the scans I took of the area to try and figure out how he got away, I found that I had picked up on some traces of tachyon particles."

"Which indicates time travel," Flash picked up. "Are you saying that Kang saved Mandarin?"

"And he's likely made a deal with him to take you guys out in exchange for something he wants. Three guesses as to what it might be," Wasp answered.

"Guys, we can't just leave them to deal with this on their own," Flash insisted.

"Flash, we've got our own world to worry about. We can't just drop everything to help these people out with their problems," John argued.

"But only half of it is their problem. The other half comes from our world, and we can't just ignore that," Captain America pointed out.

"They've defeated their own Kang, so how would this one be any different," Hawkgirl said.

"For starters, this Kang's got tech and abilities that are different from the one we fought, and besides, it took the entire Avengers team to stop him, or at least all of the team at the time," Ulrich revealed. "And in case you guys haven't noticed, we're currently short a few members. Sure, Ms. Marvel could probably make up for the areas that we lost after Thor went back to Asgard, but at the moment, we're short one Hawkeye, one Hulk, and our own Captain America."

"Not to mention that Mandarin has powers that could easily rival Kang's in any timeline, aside from the fact that unlike Kang, he can't get any attacks through mine or Ulrich's suits' protection," Aelita added.

Hearing this definitely made the Leaguers feel a bit more worried about the Avengers' chances for stopping both Kang and Mandarin, so there was really only one thing any of them could say. "We'll do whatever we can to help you before we need to head back," Captain America promised.

"Speaking of which, what have you come up with to get us back to our world," Hawkgirl asked.

"We've got an idea, actually," Hank replied, and he then dismissed the image of the Avengers' Kang to replace it with an image of a circular device. "This wormhole generating device is one that Tony and T'Challa created to help Thor return to Asgard after he found himself unable to use any of his usual methods of getting there. I've been working on some modifications so that it should, in theory be able to open a breach to your universe."

"In theory," John asked.

"Well, we never really got a chance to use the device for its original purpose, and doing this would be going even further beyond that purpose," Tony admitted. "But for right now, we need to devote a lot of resources to finding Kang and Mandarin, preferably before they're able to finalize whatever their plans may be."

The League looked like they were about to protest this, until Hank said, "Don't worry, I'll be working as hard as I can to get the device working until its ready. I'm just going to have to juggle that with our efforts to find Kang and Mandarin."

With that last matter settled, everyone started deciding on who would handle what in their efforts to locate the two villains, and eventually split off to carry out their assigned tasks, all of them hoping that whatever Mandarin and the Kang from the Justice League's world had planned, it would not be ready by the time they did find the two.

* * *

At the same time that the heroes were holding their meeting, Kang had finished explaining the full extent of his plans to Mandarin, and the wielder of the ten Makluan Rings was more than simply intrigued by it. In the simplest of words, Kang intended to combine his future technology with the incredible powers of Mandarin's rings, and the results would be that they would have an endless army of powerful troops that could give any of the heroes a run for their money. It did not stop there, as Kang revealed that there was a way that he could actually increase the power of Mandarin's rings to levels that even the Mandarin himself had only briefly felt at one, far-too-short point in his life. The mere idea of ever being able to hold that power in his grasp again was something that Mandarin had long since thought would never become a reality, and now, it was here before him. There was just one small thing that had him feeling hesitant about accepting this offer.

"Just what is it that you would gain for granting me the ability to unleash the rings' full power again? I know there must be some form of hook to it," Mandarin asked.

"The only hook is that you help me to destroy the Justice League, as I've already told you. That is all the catch in this offer," Kang reassured Mandarin.

"You'll forgive me if I am a little skeptical. You would not be the first person with incredible powers to deceive me into being a pawn in someone else's game," Mandarin sneered.

"Yes, I have seen the history of your universe. Such an injustice cannot go unpunished, and when we are finished here, I doubt that you will let it, now will you," Kang asked.

Mandarin just smirked behind his helmet in confirmation of that, not that Kang could see it, but his silence was more than confirmation enough for Kang. A minute later, Kang had summoned a vast number of his troops to the warehouse so that they could be given their new upgrade, and once that was done, all that was left was for Kang to grant Mandarin the powers that he had promised him. After stepping back a little, Kang activated his signature device used it to release a powerful energy wave into Mandarin, and after the beam struck, Mandarin began to glow with energy that coursed through every single piece of his armor and his body. As the energy grew stronger and stronger, Mandarin could feel his strength and powers increase at a rate that was far more incredible than anything he could ever remember it reaching, and eventually, it started to feel a little painful. That pain soon increased to a point where he ended up unable to suppress a scream of pain, but when the energy beam finally stopped, that scream turned into a deep, dark, maniacal laugh that would send chills down the spines of even the most soulless or fearless of people.

Seeing that their little operation had worked, Kang could only smirk at this, but there was still the matter of whether or not the improvements to his troops had worked. Thankfully, he had the perfect idea on how to test them. All he had to do was get someone's attention.

* * *

After much discussion, everyone agreed that it would be a good idea for everyone to pair up and search the city for any signs of Mandarin or Kang, but not all at once. Most of both teams would remain at Avengers Mansion, while at least two pairs of heroes would search the city, only stopping to rotate out with another pair of heroes after a few hours, with Hank coordinating everyone's efforts from the mansion. This allowed any scientific minds on both teams a chance to help work on the device that would allow the Leaguers to return home once the two villains were dealt with and help in the search as well. At the moment, the two teams that were out searching were Flash and Sprint Samurai, and Green Lantern and Ms. Marvel.

John was not entirely comfortable with being partnered up with Carol if he were being honest, but it was not for the same reasons that he initially had for distrusting her. The main reason was because he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that the woman was half-Kree, and he had a hard time trying to remember that fact. It was not really helped by the fact that her powers were so much like that of a Kree, but right now, he knew he had to deal with it. His time in the marines had long since taught him that there were sometimes things that you just had to deal with when it came to carrying out a mission, especially the most important missions. Unfortunately, it he found out that he was probably a bit more apparent in his discomfort than he thought, because after Ms. Marvel reported in on their progress, she finally confronted him on it.

"You know, if you've got a problem with me, just come right out and say it. It won't kill you," Carol told the Green Lantern of Earth.

"What makes you think I've got a problem with you," John questioned a little too quickly.

"Do you really want to play it that way, Marine," Carol asked. "You spent a lot of time glaring at me ever since we officially met at Stark Tower, and every time I entered the room, you tensed up like you were ready to fight at a moment's notice. I'll admit, you haven't been that way after you had a chat with Samurai and Angel, but you're still really tense around me, so you might as well fess up on what your problem is."

John did not question Carol on how she knew he was a former Marine, mostly because of the fact that the Avengers had made it clear that he and his teammates were all characters of fiction on this world, save Cap, but he was still hesitant to explain his reasoning. That did not mean he did not explain at all. "Look, I'll admit, it wasn't exactly a big fan, but that was because at first, I thought you were a Kree," John explained.

"Well first off, I'm only half Kree, and second, what would that have to do anything?"

"In my universe, the Kree have never really been the best of friends with the Green Lantern Corp, or even good acquaintances. I've had to watch a lot of good friends get gunned down by the Kree, some for no reason other than the fact that they were trying to convince the Kree to not invade a world, so when it comes to anything involving the Kree, my first instinct is always to be ready for a fight. Oh, and I know about the fact that you're half-Kree. Your young friends explained it to me," John elaborated.

Carol's stern expression softened a little at that, and she then said, "Hey, I get not being a fan of the Kree, especially considering our most recent encounter with them, but I can't exactly deny who or what I am. I'm half-Kree, but the rest of me is human, and that's the part that matters to me. Think you can handle dealing with both?"

John paused in thought for a moment in thought before he finally said, "Well, if I can handle dealing with Captain Marvel, I guess dealing with you shouldn't be that hard."

Carol smiled in response to that. "That's good to hear, and it's nice to know that Captain Marvel is a real hero in at least one universe."

John was soon returning her smile after that before he said, "I actually have to ask, did he have anything to do why you call yourself Ms. Marvel?"

"He might," Carol admitted.

Before the two could go any further, Carol's ID card suddenly beeped to signal she had an incoming call from Hank. _"Avengers Mansion to patrol teams. J.A.R.V.I.S. just picked up on a large concentration of tachyons on the outskirts of the city. I'm sending the coordinates to your ID cards now."_

 _"Got it Hank. Flash and I are close by. We'll head over there and check things out,"_ Ulrich responded.

"Hey, don't go rushing in there on your own," John warned.

 _"Relax, Lantern. This isn't my first day on the job. Besides, unlike Flash here, I actually know how to fight beyond just my powers."_

 _"Oh gee, thanks,"_ Flash retorted, though John could tell from the sound of his voice that he was not being entirely serious.

"Well all the same, Lantern and I will head over there to back you two up, so try to be careful until we get there," Carol requested.

 _"You got it, Ms. M,"_ Ulrich responded, and the two fliers were immediately turning around to head in the direction of the coordinates that Hank had sent to Carol's ID card.

* * *

Reaching the coordinates that Hank had sent them in little to no time at all was not a problem for either of the two speedsters, and in a flash of gold, Sprint Samurai appeared on site of the heroes' destination, followed shortly by Flash, leading Ulrich to smirk and say, "For the record, I got here first."

"Yeah well I had circled around a few times to check for traps or guys waiting to ambush us when we got inside, so I let you get here first," Flash insisted.

Both of the speedsters could not help but laugh a little at their own banter, but that laughter quickly ended when Ulrich noticed something off about their surroundings. "This is definitely where Hank had picked up on that tachyon signal, right?"

"Yeah," Flash replied, having seen the info on his own, temporary Avengers ID card.

"So if that is the case, where's our big bad time traveler and his black armored friend with excess power rings," Ulrich said.

The Sprint Samurai had a point, as the warehouse they had arrived in was completely empty as far as anyone could see or hear. Being the experienced heroes that they were, Ulrich and Flash both knew that this meant that they had either just missed the supervillains or this was likely an elaborate trap of some kind. Both scenarios were very likely in this case, and that was why they made sure to proceed with caution as they started to search the rest of the building, or at least as much caution as any speedster could possess. A search that likely would have taken hours then ended up taking only a few seconds, and in the end, neither one of the two speedsters found anything that could lead them to Kang or Mandarin. After one last look, they were just about to leave when the trap was finally sprung.

In an instant, the entire room had become shrouded in a blanket of darkness so thick that neither Flash nor Sprint Samurai could so much as see their own hands in front of their faces, but they were still able to hear quite well, and they could both hear the other one letting out grunts of pain after being struck by something or someone. When the shadows finally subsided, the two were both down on one knee and staring up at more of Kang's robotic minions wearing what looked like simplified versions of Mandarin's armor. The main differences being that none of their helmets had horns on the top like Mandarin's did, and each armor seemed to be highlighted in a color that matched that of one of the ten rings that Mandarin wore. Looking around at these troops, Ulrich could see that the red troops all had small flames forming around their fists or other parts of their bodies, the yellow troops had a cold mist about them, the green troops had electricity dancing around them, and so on and so forth, until he had accounted for nearly all of the various powers of Mandarin's rings.

"That's new," Ulrich commented, and he had barely even finished said comment before the Mandarin-enhanced soldiers charged him and Flash. Both Speedsters were instantly on their feet again and racing around the room to try and avoid being hit by the robotic menaces, but they could only do but so much against them, especially after they realized were almost as fast as they were, namely the ones with white highlights on their armor, and that made it all the more difficult to keep ahead of enemy attacks.

Ulrich was more than used to deflecting attacks in close or long-range combat with his sabers, and Flash had quite a great deal of experience fighting other speedsters, so the two were able to hold their own for a short time, but even they had a limit on how long they could last, especially since the ones with armor that was all black could create shadows around them in an instant. It soon became much more difficult when the ones wearing armor with purple highlights started teleporting around the room as a way of staying ahead of the two, and then went so far as to increase the gravity around Flash and Ulrich so that they had a harder time moving, right up to the point where they had to struggle just to stay standing. When both heroes were forced down onto their knees, the troops started to move in, ready to finish them off, until they all paused at a very loud shout.

"ENOUGH," said person shouted, and the troops all stood down before parting like the Red Sea so that Mandarin could step forward and look down on the two heroes, energy dancing around his body like wild electricity. "You are either very brave or incredibly foolish to come here alone, heroes, but still, I should thank you. You've given me the opportunity to truly test the new limits of my powers."

"Glad we could help," Ulrich remarked sarcastically, but a minute later, he was crying out in pain after Mandarin struck him with a fire blast, sending him crashing back into the wall behind him. When he fell to the floor again, he was shocked to discover that Mandarin's attack actually hurt him a lot more than it should have, and his suit was fizzling in and out of its active state. "How did you…"

"You've never truly faced me at the greatest height of my power before, Sprint Samurai, and now, I've not only been granted the ability to call on it again, but I've exceeded it, thanks to Kang's assistance," Mandarin answered. "Though I will admit, I am just as surprised as you are that I was able to inflict harm upon you despite you the protection your suit provides you, but I find it to be a very welcoming benefit."

Ulrich just glared darkly at the black armored villain, saying nothing in response, before he started struggling even harder to stand up again so that he could attack Mandarin. It was all for not though, because the gravity field around him was still in effect, and Flash was having no better luck at standing up than his young friend was. Thankfully, they did not have to worry about getting out of this mess on their own, because it was at that moment when Green Lantern and Ms. Marvel arrived on the scene, both blasting the black armored villain with their respective energy blasts. While the blonde heroine was quick to drop down next to Ulrich to make sure he was all right, John made to push back the army of enhanced mechanical soldiers with his ring, but even he had to struggle in order to do that, especially when Mandarin stepped forward and simply raised a finger to push back against it.

Seeing Green Lantern struggle so much prompted Carol into action, and she immediately let loose a barrage of energy blasts from the air, forcing the enemy forces to either scatter or throw up energy shields in order to save themselves. It also served to distract Mandarin for a moment, and thankfully, that was all Carol needed. "Lantern! Blast me with your ring, and give it everything you've got," Carol shouted.

"Are you crazy," John demanded. "You could end up getting killed if I did that!"

"Just do it!"

After another moment of hesitance, John dismissed his shield and jumped back before firing a powerful blast of energy right at Ms. Marvel. Instead of being knocked through the ceiling or harmed though, Carol's body just lit up with an aura of yellow energy until it looked like her whole body had changed to the color. With that done, Carol pulled back both hands as she formed an energy ball between them, and threw it straight down at the ground, creating a powerful shockwave with an explosion of light that either knocked Mandarin and his forces off their feet or blinded them. When the light finally cleared, all four heroes were long gone, but Mandarin did not get discouraged at all. Instead he just laughed at the new development.

"It seems our efforts have paid off, Kang. We have the heroes running for their very lives," Mandarin chuckled.

"They can run all they want to for now. In the end, they will all perish before our combined might," Kang promised in agreement as he stepped out of the shadows, and the two were soon sharing a mad cackle of laughter at what seemed to be their fast approaching victory.

* * *

After escaping from Mandarin and his army, the four heroes had immediately hightailed it back to Avengers Mansion, and upon arriving, Hank had immediately ushered Ulrich into their medical center so that he could look the young man over for any injuries he had sustained. Ulrich had tried to insist that he was fine, but his assurances were all ignored after he let out several grunts of pain as Hank examined him. In the end, it seemed that the young Avenger had managed to escape with very minor injuries, but that still left the question as to what had happened to him and Flash before Green Lantern and Ms. Marvel had arrived. When they were finally asked about it, the two were quick to answer all of the questions that their respective teammates had, and said teammates did not like the sound of it at all.

"Okay, back up a minute. You're saying that Kang's troops had armor like Mandarin's and all of his powers," Tony asked in disbelief.

"Armor, yes, but as far as powers go, it was more like they only had the powers of one specific ring," Ulrich clarified.

"Yeah, aside from their basic attacks and abilities, which we all saw earlier, they all had some kind of differences to their abilities and powers," Flash clarified. "It was pretty easy to tell who could do what though, seeing as they were color-coded, but that didn't make it any easier fighting them."

"Why didn't you two just try to leave after learning everything you could," Hawkgirl asked.

"That was pretty much what we _were_ doing, but there was just too many of them, and they had quite a few guys with super speed as well," Ulrich protested.

"To be fair, neither of them were expecting an ambush quite like that, so we should just be glad that they were able to get out of there at all," John said in the two's defense.

"Yeah, but now we've got to deal with an army of Kang robots that have Mandarin powers," Wasp pointed out.

"Makluan Ring powers," Iron Man corrected, drawing looks from everyone else. "Mandarin's powers come from his ten rings, the Makluan Rings, so technically…"

"We get it, Stark," Captain America interrupted. "But none of that matters now. The bottom line is that we need some way to stop those two, and it starts with disabling their new army of super magic warriors."

"It's not magic," Tony immediately argued. "The Makluan Rings are highly advanced alien technology."

"Does that really matter right now," Diana asked.

"No, this is just Tony continuing to be in denial of the existence of magic, or just flat out hating it. You should hear the arguments he has gotten into with Thor," Aelita explained.

"Well, we won't have to worry about discovering a way to disable those Makluan Troopers, because I think I might have something," Hank revealed as he finally let Ulrich leave the examination table and approached the others so that they could see what was displayed on the tablet he had in his hand. "Specialized nanotech disks that are keyed to disable any of those troopers once they are placed on them, based off of what we've learned about our Kang's tech. I just need to make a few, slight modifications so that they'll be guaranteed to work on the League's Kang."

"How much time will it take to complete those modifications," J'onn asked.

"By my estimates, I'd say about three hours at best," Hank replied.

"We might not have that much time," Tony pointed out.

"Well that's really the best I can do at the moment, especially since I need to juggle that with modifying the wormhole generator that will get the League home," Hank argued.

"Iron Man and I can take over on that front while you work on your nanotechnology device, Doctor Pym," T'Challa instantly said. "He and I worked together to develop the device for its original purpose, so we are better suited for modifying it as well."

Seeing as they did not have much time to argue, Hank agreed to T'Challa's suggested course of action and they all quickly dispersed for the moment after deciding that it would not be safe to send anyone else out on a patrol of the city in case Kang and Mandarin decided to catch them in another ambush like the one that Flash and Ulrich had been caught in.

* * *

Almost an hour later saw Ulrich down in the training room of the mansion getting in a small workout in order to shake off the last aches and pains he still had from the previous fight. He probably should have been taking it easy, but Ulrich was never one to just sit around and do nothing when there was something going on, so this was really his only option for taking his mind off of the problem for the moment, since there was not anything he could do to help. Of course, it also served the purpose of helping him to organize his thoughts and vent his frustrations when nothing else seemed to help, and at the moment, he was very frustrated with quite a few things. For starters, there was the fact that Mandarin was now able to get past his suit's protection, which meant he could more than likely do the same in regards to Aelita's suit. The list of people who could do that had once been very short, but lately, it seemed as though someone out there was trying to make that list longer and longer as the days went by, and that both terrified and angered him, because it made it seem like someone was gunning for them specifically. Some would argue that such things were par the course in the life of a superhero, but for Ulrich and Aelita, this was very different.

Of course, that was not the only reason Ulrich was frustrated, and the second reason actually ended up walking into the room right after he had landed a particularly hard kick into the punching bag. "Think you could stand some company," Captain America asked.

Ulrich was about to throw the super soldier a small side glare, but quickly reminded himself that this Captain America was from the Justice League's universe, and not the one that he and Aelita were currently very suspicious of. Even so, he really did not want to have to deal with the super soldier of any universe at the moment, especially given all that had happened with his Captain America as of late, but there was just one small problem with that. "I'm pretty sure you're going to join in even if I said no," Ulrich replied.

"I guess you really do know me," Cap joked in response.

"I know another version of you, or at least I thought I did," Ulrich huffed as he finally brought his routine to a pause so he could catch his breath.

"Yeah, Lantern and Hawkgirl told me about the trouble you were having with your Captain America," Steve revealed. That got Ulrich to stop what he was doing and throw the super soldier a questioning look. "I just want to make sure that you know I'm not him, especially when it counts out there."

"Hey, I'm not so petty that I'd let my problems effect how I work in the field, and besides that, I do know that you're not my Captain America, but it's not always easy to remember that," Ulrich defended. "I mean, you look just like the guy, and fight like he does, or at least, how he did before our little adventure in Asgard, so you'll have to forgive me if I sometimes forget that little tidbit."

"I understand, soldier, but the fact of the matter is that I'm a different person than he is, despite how many similarities we may share, so how about you and I agree to leave those problems aside and start over," Cap offered.

Ulrich had to pause and think for a moment, before he finally gave a small nod of acceptance for this and waved Cap over so that they could train together. From that point on, Ulrich found himself starting to smile a little more, because for a moment, it felt a bit like how his training sessions with his Captain America used to be, and yet it was still different enough to prove that this man and the Steve Rogers he knew were not the same guy, only this time, it was different in a good way.

* * *

It was not until an hour and a half after Cap and Ulrich had started sparring together that Hank finally called everyone together again so that he could announce his success at completing the devices that would allow them to disable Kang's drones, and now they just needed a run down on exactly what it could do. Unfortunately, Hank's explanation was interrupted before it could even begin, as J.A.R.V.I.S. suddenly announced that the two villains were broadcasting their intentions on all channels of news and information. To be more specific, Kang and Mandarin were calling the heroes out, and telling the Justice League and the Avengers that their combined forces would soon be spread all across the world in a matter of hours, ready to destroy all who would oppose them, unless the two teams of heroes could stop them in time. Normally this would seem like an egotistical boast, but given what Flash, Ulrich, John, and Carol had seen when they encountered Mandarin and Kang's troops earlier, they all knew that there was a very strong chance that the villains could back it up.

After hearing this broadcast again, it was not difficult to figure out where the two villains were waiting for them. "They're in Times Square," Tony revealed aloud for everyone.

"One of the most popular places in all of New York City is about to become a battlefield, and if we don't face them now, your whole world will be crawling with these Makluan-Kang Troopers," Diana stated.

"Just how much of the globe has already been covered," J'onn inquired.

"Just about all of the USA, and they're quickly starting to spread out to the rest of the continent and beyond," Aelita replied, bringing up a map of the world that highlighted the specified areas as she did. No one liked that response at all.

"If we're going to stop them, then we need to do it now," John stated.

"Well then, it's a good thing we have something that can help with that," Hank said as he revealed the small circular device that had been the end result of his hard work. "This little nanotech miracle will cause any Kang Trooper it's placed on, Makluan enhanced or otherwise to shut down in an instant once it's activated, along with any other troop within its immediate area."

"Define 'immediate area'," Hawkgirl asked.

"Well…I'd say they'd have to be as close as you currently are to Flash, Diana, and John," Hank replied.

"Well, at least we won't have to use so many of them," Flash shrugged in relief. That relief soon vanished though when Hank's face suddenly became pensive. "There's a catch, isn't there?"

Hank's silence was all the confirmation needed, prompting Captain America to say, "Whatever it is, Doctor Pym, just give it to us straight. We don't have time to beat around the bush."

Hank nodded in response and then went on to explain, "Well the only downside is that, since Kang's robots have adaptation capabilities, you will need to place them on all of Kang's troops, if not most of them before activating, otherwise they will likely not work again."

"There are hundreds of those things across the country, maybe even half the world by now. Even with Flash, Ulrich, and I all working together, we couldn't get one of those nanotech cocktails of yours on all of those drones before Kang and Mandarin catch on to what we're doing," Carol protested.

"Unless we give them something else to notice," Aelita pointed out.

The two teams looked amongst themselves for a moment before Iron Man stepped over to Green Lantern and said, "You guys don't have to do this, you know."

"Hey, part of this threat came from our world, so that means we're involved this no matter what," John pointed out.

"He's right," Cap nodded. "Your world needs both the Avengers and the Justice League."

Everyone immediately exchanged smirks of excitement at that remark, and they were all soon locking hands in firm handshakes, cementing their alliance and promising that the battle that was about to come would be one of the greatest that either of their worlds had seen yet.

* * *

Times Square was normally an area where hundreds of people, New Yorker and tourist alike, were always gathered for any number of reasons, and none of those reasons had ever been because of a supervillain attack, mostly because of the fact that most sensible would not want to be in the area of such attacks, but also because somehow, the area had avoided being caught in such an incident for the most part aside from the rare mass invasion, like the one it was facing right now. Countless Makluan-enhanced drones were crawling around the area, along the walls, on the ground, and even in the air, and standing in the center of both the famous location and the invading forces were the Mandarin of this universe, and Kang the Conqueror of another universe. They both simply stood where they were, looking out over the area smugly, silently boasting of how sure they were of their victory. Their smirks of assurance only grew a little more when they saw Iron Man, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, and the Avengers Quinjet land nearby, the last which deposited the rest of the Avengers and the Justice League once it had landed.

"I was beginning to think you would finally realize the futility of fighting us and ran like the pathetic insects you are," Kang commented to the gathered heroes.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Kang, but we're just too stubborn to quit," Iron Man snipped in response.

"I believe it would be more accurate to say that you are too foolish to do anything else, Stark," Mandarin mocked.

"Think whatever you want in that regard, but just know that no matter what you try to throw at us, we're not going to let you have this world, or any other world so long as one of us is still breathing," Captain America retorted.

The two sides then glared each other down while J'onn set up a telepathic link amongst the heroes so that they would be able to communicate amongst themselves with minimal risk of the two villains overhearing them. _"I have set up the link. Is everyone online,"_ J'onn telepathically asked.

 _"Yeah, and feeling a bit weirded out by this,"_ Wasp replied.

 _"Just try to stay focused. Remember, most of us just have to distract them while Flash and Samurai focus on getting the devices planted on Kang and Mandarin's forces as fast as possible,"_ Green Lantern thought.

 _"Don't worry. Fast is the only speed I know how to work at,"_ Flash boasted.

 _"That makes two of us,"_ Ulrich smirked.

With their last bit of reminders on the plan now settled, there was really only one thing that anyone on both teams needed to say, and it was said by Iron Man and Captain America, respectively. "Avengers…"

"Justice League…"

"Assemble/Attack!"

In the blink of an eye, the heroes were blasting into action and meeting the army of enemies at full force, be it on the ground or in the air, and if anyone were present to see it, they would tell you that it was a sight that you would have to have seen in person to really understand just how incredible it was. In the air, Hawkgirl was slamming her mace into enemies left and right, sending many of them flying into the range of Angel Guardian's energy fields, while Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, and Green Lantern were lighting up the skies with their respective energy blasts. At the same time, Black Panther, Captain America, and Wonder Woman were dealing out some damage against the enemies who were on the ground and along the walls of nearby buildings with a show of incredible acrobatics and combined martial arts styles, while Wasp and J'onn varied between enemies on the ground and in the air. As all of this was happening, Flash and Sprint Samurai were racing around the area planting Hank's devices on the various enemy drones while dealing out some attacks whenever they saw a chance to, and so far, it did not seem that either one of the two leading villains were going to catch on to that any time soon.

The heroes did not spend all of their time focusing on the minions though, as eventually, Iron Man and Green Lantern moved in to attack Mandarin and Kang in a full-frontal strike. Given his past experiences fighting the black armored villain, Tony was sure that he would be more than ready for any surprises that Mandarin would have for him. Despite that, he found himself unprepared for when Mandarin actually moved fast enough to almost seem like he had teleported when in reality he was just moving faster than he ever had before, and he ended up being bashed aside like a fly. Green Lantern fared no better against Kang, as the self-proclaimed master of time easily managed to counter any construct that John threw out at him with his wrist weapon. Eventually, Kang used his weapon to not only break John's most recent construct, but also to send him flying through several nearby buildings. He would have ended up crashing into the ground had it not been for a timely intervention by Ms. Marvel, who soon planted him back on his feet when she landed again.

"Thanks," John nodded.

"Anytime," Carol smirked, and the two then took off to rejoin the battle.

While they were doing that, J'onn and Janet had taken a shot at beating the two, the latter having become Giant-Woman just for the occasion while the former had shapeshifted into a monstrous, snake-like form, but the two villains were just too much for them, as Janet found out when Mandarin managed to nearly burnt her to a crisp with his enhanced powers before pinning her down on the ground with little trouble at all. Luckily she was able to escape by shrinking back down into Wasp, and flew away just in time to avoid being caught up in the barrage of energy fields that Aelita rained down on the black armored villain from above. Hawkgirl was quick to use the cover that the pinkette's barrage in an attempt to attack one of the two, but the only reward she received for her efforts was being slammed into the building after Kang threw J'onn right at her. This had ended being the distraction that Mandarin needed to blast Aelita out of the air as well, but thankfully, she was able to avoid a hard landing thanks to Captain America catching her before she hit the ground.

This pattern continued on after a while, until Iron Man shouted for everyone to let their biggest guns to focus on the two villains while the others handled fighting the drones, and in no time at all, Mandarin and Kang were dealing with a good number of the most powerful heroes on both teams, while the rest were quick to deal out as much damage as they could to the drones in the surrounding area. Even with the combined strengths of Iron Man, Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Angel Guardian, and Martian Manhunter, the two were still able to firmly hold their ground against the heroes, but their troopers were a different story, as Captain America, Black Panther, Wasp, Flash, and Sprint Samurai were all able to disable or destroy a good number of the drones when they were not busy planting the nanotech devices on them.

This continued on until Hank finally radioed in from Avengers Mansion and reported, _"From my readouts, it looks like you've got a satisfactory amount of the devices in place so that every one of the drones in Time Square will be knocked out of action. The only problem is that we've still got several hundred more all across the country that we need to tag before I can safely say that we'll be ready to activate them."_

"Any recommendations," Captain America asked as he slashed his shield through another drone and then used it to deflect a combined blast of lightning and fire from several others that were nearby.

 _"I can only think of one,"_ Hank replied. _"This looks like a job for the Flash."_

Flash was instantly racing out of the area in one direction, having quickly caught on to what Hank was suggesting, and Sprint Samurai was doing the same a minute later in another direction, but not before getting a word in to his friend. "Thanks Hank. I'm not the least bit insulted."

 _"Ah, sorry! I meant the Flash and Sprint Samurai. This is definitely a job for the both of you. That's what I meant. The Flash and…Sprint Samurai. I'm just gonna shut up and let you guys do your thing now."_

"That would be appreciative at the moment, Doctor Pym," Black Panther commented as he drew his vibranium daggers and used them to cut down even more drones than he had before.

While the two speedsters were racing across the country, the other heroes were immediately starting to refocus as much of their efforts as possible into fighting Kang and Mandarin, which was no easy task even if they did not have to deal with the army of foot soldiers at the two's command. If they ever took their eyes off of either the two supervillains or their minions for even a second, the other was almost always there and ready to take advantage of that and hit them from behind, and that only made things all the more difficult for anyone to get so much as one hit on any of their opponents many times, including the ranged-fighters. The fact that Mandarin and Kang were also teleporting and running all over the place so that they were able to avoid any damage or injury in the blink of an eye did not help at all, so all they could really do at this point was wait and hope that Flash and Sprint Samurai would finish their tasks soon.

Those hopes ended up going unanswered for a few more minutes, during such time, Wonder Woman was nearly suffocated by a vortex of wind created by multiple troopers, Hawkgirl and Aelita were forced down by a massive gravity field, Wasp and Martian Manhunter were nearly cooked alive, and everyone else was basically thrown around like ragdolls by the leaders of the pack. Needless to say, they were all extremely thankful when Hank finally called in and said, _"The devices are all planted. Just give me the signal and we can kiss these wannabe Stormtroopers goodbye."_

No one gave the signal right away, but instead waited for a few moments as the combined forces slowly closed in around them, hoping to overwhelm the heroes and putting themselves within closer proximity of one another. When he finally deemed them close enough, Iron Man finally shouted, "DO IT!"

 _"…Done."_

Barely seconds after Hank had spoken, the various robots around them all jolted and jittered for a moment before they all collapsed down onto the ground, immobilized and in some cases broken apart, much to the shock of both Mandarin and Kang. What came as even more of a shock was that Kang and Mandarin were also caught in the chain reaction of the devices, and they both let out a cry of pain before they fell to their knees. When the effects finally passed, Mandarin's aura had faded significantly, to the point where it was almost barely noticeable, and this did not escape his notice at all.

"What is the meaning of this?! Explain yourself, Kang," Mandarin demanded.

"I don't understand. How is this…What did you…" Kang stuttered as he glared around him before finally settling his gaze on the heroes.

"You're tech may be seriously advanced, Kang, but we're all quick studies," Iron Man quipped.

"Plus the fact that you came to a world where another version of Kang has already attacked and got his butt kicked wasn't really a smart move," Wasp added as she and the other heroes all started rising back up to attack once more.

Kang and Mandarin were both ready for anything that the heroes before them would throw at them, but what they did not realize was that not all of their enemies were standing ready in front of them. At least, not until it was far too late, and thanks to a telepathic heads-up, the League and the Avengers were all able to get to a safe distance before Flash came barreling in and delivered a powerful, supersonic punch right into Kang's back. Mandarin was quick to follow his temporary partner, as a second later, Sprint Samurai came racing in and started running around him in a triangular formation, creating the illusion of their being three of himself at the three points on the triangle, and all the while, Mandarin could feel himself getting slashed over and over again. After the last slash sent him flying, the triangle formation broke off and revealed that there were in fact three Ulrichs, and all three of them were instantly racing in to attack Mandarin at once.

None of the other heroes were going to stand by and watch their two, fast moving friends have all the fun, and soon enough, Mandarin and Kang were being assaulted by vibranium daggers, Cap's shield, Wonder Woman's tiara, energy blasts of four different varieties, and every other form of attack that was available to the gathered heroes until they were both knocked onto their backs and restrained by a hero from their respective universe, Kang being tied up by Wonder Woman's lasso, and Mandarin being restrained in cement that was conjured up by Aelita's creativity. Neither one of the two villains were content with being captured though, and Mandarin proved that by teleporting himself away in a flash of light, eliciting a groan from all of the Avengers.

"Next time, remind me to make sure that I make something that he won't be able to teleport out of, or that he's completely unconscious, or that we just take away his magic rings," Aelita told her teammates.

"They are not magic," Iron Man said once again.

"Well, they certainly make me think that they are," Diana commented.

While the heroes were discussing this, none of them had ever registered when Kang growled, "This is far from over."

An instant later, Kang had also vanished in a flash of light, and the indestructible lasso dropped to the ground, much to everyone's ire. Iron Man and Hank were both instantly scanning for traces of the two, but they ended up coming with nothing in regards to Mandarin. Kang on the other hand, they were able to determine the same thing, given that all of his forces had vanished along with him. _"The tachyon trail indicates that Kang has disappeared completely, almost like he's left this time, maybe even this universe,"_ Hank reported.

"In other words, we did it," Green Lantern asked.

"Yeah, we did," Carol nodded.

"We won," Captain America finished, and everyone was more than able to stand tall and proud at this knowledge, exchanging victorious smiles amongst themselves the entire time.

* * *

A few hours had passed since the Avengers and Leaguers' victory over Kang and Mandarin, and in that time, Tony, T'Challa, and Hank spent every single second working on the device that would get the Justice League back home. Even though they had won, there was still the fact that Kang presented a real threat to the League's Earth, so the need for them to get back home was very great. While the three were working on that, the rest of the heroes were all spending a few last peaceful moments hanging out together, and this time around, you would find everyone getting along great. Just about everyone was exchanging stories of adventures, laughing at the most ridiculous of memories, or just doing whatever they felt like doing in their last few moments hanging out together.

One such example could be found with Carol and John, who were just exchanging crazy stories about their time in their respective military branches, and how it went on to affect their hero lives later on. "From Air Force pilot to half-alien heroine who works with a special organization that handles stuff in space, huh? A guy could think someone was trying to make an Earth-based Lantern Corp of your own," John commented.

"Hey, after dealing with everything that's happened over the past year, it'd be a little weird if we didn't start setting up some sort of organization that could respond later on," Carol shrugged.

John had to laugh a little at that, and said, "You know, I think you'd probably get along great with Hal if you ever met."

"Really?! I mean…not that I'd really care one way or another. I mean, it's not like the Green Lantern comics were always my favorite growing up as a kid or anything, but…I just said that out loud, didn't I," Carol stuttered.

The Green Lantern of the two could only smirk at the blonde's embarrassment before he said, "Well I guess you just got to have the time of your life by teaming up with your childhood hero."

Carol just beamed happily at that, and the two continued on from there, neither of them able to hear that much of the conversation between the two speedsters from the other side of the room. "So hey, Aelita and I actually went to another universe with a Justice League a while back, and their Flash was a guy named Wally, so I was just wondering if you could tell me whether or not you were the same guy or anything like that," Ulrich asked.

"Well…I don't know," Flash replied a little hesitantly.

"Hey, it's not like I'm going to tell anyone from your universe or anything, and if it makes you feel any better, you could just tell me your first name, and the only person I'll tell is Aelita. Plus, I could tell her after you guys have left," Ulrich pointed out.

Flash had to admit that Ulrich did have a good point, and after another minute of thought or so, he finally held a hand out to Ulrich and said, "My name's not Wally. It's Barry. Nice to meet you, Ulrich."

Ulrich smiled brightly at this as he accepted the handshake and stated, "You know, out of every version of the Flash I know of, you are definitely my favorite, Barry."

"Well I think after today, my favorite speedster is Ulrich Stern, the Sprint Samurai," Barry quipped in response, getting a laugh out of both of the two.

The final notable meeting among the two teams was actually between Aelita and Captain America. Steve had planned to clear the air with the other Lyoko Warrior of the two young heroes, but Aelita beat him to the punch by saying, "I know that you're not the Captain America Ulrich and I know, and to be honest, I'm glad you aren't. It all just means that there's still at least one version of Steve Rogers out there who's still an honest hero, and I'm glad that we got to work with you for this."

"I appreciate that, Aelita," Steve nodded in thanks. "And don't worry. Whatever is going on with your Captain America, I'm sure that if anyone can resolve it, it's you and your brother."

Aelita immediately smiled widely in response to that, and was soon wrapping Steve up in a tight hug, which Cap happily returned. He had meant what he said, because somehow he knew that the young girl and Ulrich were going to make a big difference in this world, and not just in the case of the mystery surrounding their world's version of him. After all of these conversations and exchanges had reached their ultimate closing points, Tony's voice suddenly sounded over the speakers to let everyone know that they were ready to give the device a try, and they were all instantly racing down to the lab to see if it would work.

Upon arriving in the lab, they could all see the device was already set up and ready for action, but another thing that they could not help but note was that there seemed to be a large ring around it with wires connecting the two together. They all figured it had to serve some really important purpose, so they just put it aside and turned to the geniuses that had managed to complete this project so that they could get an explanation. "We've done everything we can to convert the device so that it will create a breach like the one that brought you all here in the first place, but there's still just one thing left that we have to do if we want to be absolutely sure that it will send you home and not to some other dimension by accident," Hank explained to the League.

"And what would that be," Diana inquired.

"Well as Flash had stated, every different Earth vibrates at a different frequency so that they can't interact with each other, so in order to open the portal to your Earth, we need to find the right vibration frequency," Tony explained. "To do that, we're going to need Flash and Ulrich to have a little race on this track here."

"Using the data gathered from their respective speed energies, we should be able to extrapolate the exact vibrations that are attuned to your world and open a gateway there," Hank explained.

"That's a pretty big theory," Flash pointed out.

"Don't worry, you can handle this. I'm ninety percent sure," Hank said, only to add on to his statement. "Well…maybe seventy eight percent…or a strong seventy two, I can't stop. Aelita help!"

"You guys can handle this. That's why you're both going to be doing this together," Aelita said to both Flash and her adoptive brother, much to their relief.

With the explanations settled, Flash and Ulrich just exchanged a quick glance between them before the latter suited up, and the asked the Scarlet Speedster, "You ready to finally settle the question of which of us is faster, Flash?"

"I don't know. Think you can keep up, Sprint Samurai," Flash smirked in response.

Ulrich just chuckled in reply, and a minute later, the two were positioned at the starting point, waiting for Tony to give them the signal to start. As they were waiting, Diana leaned over to Steve and asked, "If Tony Stark is Iron Man in this universe, do you think that means he's Iron Man back home as well?"

Steve looked over at the Avengers leader in thought for a minute before he finally said, "Somehow, I don't think so. Our Tony Stark may be a better man than he was back when he was in the weapons business, but I'm pretty sure that he's the farthest thing from the hero type."

Diana and every other Leaguer who heard that could only nod in agreement of that, and then watched as Tony signaled Flash and Ulrich to start their little race. The minute they heard the man shout go, the two speedsters were off and running as fast as they could around the machine, and everyone could only look on in awe with baited breaths to see if it would work. They were not really sure how long they were waiting, it honestly felt like an eternity to some of them, but eventually, Hank announced that he had a fix on the frequency and hit the control to trigger the device. A minute later, the center of the gateway opened up to reveal a glowing, blue portal, and Hank shouted, "You'll have to jump through while Flash and Ulrich are still running, with Flash going in last, otherwise I don't think we'll be able to hold it open."

The Justice League all nodded in response, and spared the Avengers one last look of thanks before they raced into the portal. Once the last of his teammates had jumped through, Flash gave Ulrich a mock salute and jumped through as well, while the Sprint Samurai skidded to a stop next to his own teammates as the gateway closed with a loud bang. As he caught his breath and looked on at where the Justice League had just disappeared, Ulrich had to smile and say one simple last sentence. "Bye Barry."

* * *

Once again, the Leaguers all found themselves waking up in an alleyway of some unknown city after they had crossed through, and after checking to make sure everyone was okay, Flash raced out to check a nearby newsstand to see if they had landed where they wanted to. When he returned he had a grim look on his face did not send a message of good news. "Guys, we definitely landed in the Central City of our world, but there's something you have to see," Flash announced.

The entire League immediately followed the fastest man alive out of the alleyway and soon let out gasps of horror at the sight that greeted them. There, flying high above the city, was a massive fleet of ships all similar in design to the technology that Kang was using, and numerous drones were constantly flying out of them while the countless others that were already deployed were marching through the city like Stormtroopers boarding a Star Destroyer. Streets were covered with ruined cars, and buildings had giant holes in their walls and shattered windows. Simply put, the entirety of Flash's hometown seemed to be in ruins.

"Are…are we too late," Captain America finally asked.

Flash was the only one to receive an answer, when his private comm. link suddenly beeped in alert of an incoming call. _"Barry? Barry is that you?! Are you there,"_ Cisco's voice practically shouted in Flash's ear.

"Vibe? Yeah, I'm here, and so are the rest of the League," Flash immediately responded, getting everyone's attention. "What's going on? What happened? Where are you?"

 _"Hey man, whoa! I know it's hard for you to do, but slow down for a minute. I'm still stuck on the part where you said that you and the rest of the missing Justice Leaguers are all alive,"_ Cisco replied. _"As for what happened, we got invaded! The whole world's been attacked by this wacked-out dude that says he's a time traveler from the future. Goes by the name of…"_

"Kang the Conqueror," Flash finished for his friend.

 _"Uh, yeah. How did you know?"_

"Long story, dude. I'll explain later, but…how long have we been gone?"

Cisco was completely silent for a moment, until he finally revealed a piece of news that Flash did not want to hear or relay to his friends. _"Barry, you and others have been MIA for almost three weeks now."_

* * *

 ** _AN: Whoa, didn't see that coming, did you? Yeah, they saved one world only to come back home and discover that Kang's already been attacking theirs for three weeks now. Crazy, huh? Well of course things aren't going to be resolved that easily. That would be a little weird if they were._**

 ** _On another note, yeah, the League did not really have much of an impact on the events of Code Avengers: Cosmic, beyond the fact that they were there, but they did still have an impact nonetheless. For those of you following said story, there will at least be a mention of this in that story, and I'm sure you all noticed how Ulrich mentioned that he and Aelita met a Justice League who had Wally West as the Flash. Well I'm sure you can all guess what that would likely imply, huh? If you can't, well, I'm sure it'll come to you sooner or later._**

 ** _Also, we got to see a few more references in this chapter to some DC series in this chapter, along with a few other cool things. Honestly wish I could've had the League help out in uncovering Skrull Captain America's true identity, but as was stated in the previous chapter, he was off on another mission with Hulk and Hawkeye, so the League never got the chance to meet him. Plus, it'd be a little weird to have two Captain Americas in the same place at once in this case._**

 ** _So yeah, now it's back home, and back to work not even a second after they get back. And I'm sure you're all wondering how Kang managed to take over when there are so many heroes left back in the League's dimension, including Superman and Batman, right? Well for starters, the guy is a time traveler and a conqueror from the 41st century, so that would mean that he's got a serious edge in several areas, even against Batman. Plus, with most of the greatest heroes MIA...wait, why am I telling you all this now? Seriously, these are things that you should learn in the next chapter. Hehe, almost made myself a victim of my own spoiler prevention gags._**

 ** _Well anyway, the crossover may be over, but the adventure that it started has still got one more chapter left before it can come to a close. To learn a little more about what you can expect for next time, go Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _The League's return home is not what they were expecting or hoping it to be, as Kang the Conqueror has invaded their world. Heroes all across the world, from Miami, to Star City, and all other cities beyond have been doing everything they can in a struggle to survive the invasion, but they all know that the best chances of the world surviving Kang's wrath lies with the Justice League. Locating where Batman and Superman have taken shelter for the moment is but the first step, but just what else can the Leaguers do in order to save the world from the master of time? Find out next time in…_** **Chapter 13: Clash with the Conqueror** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	14. Clash with the Conqueror

_**AN: Well, well, well. What do we have here? Could it possibly be another update from moi, and for the crossover between Marvel and DC, or more accurately, my Captain America &Justice League crossover?**_

 _ **[audience cheers in confirmation]**_

 _ **No, but that can't be right. I mean, I've had other projects to work on lately, so this must be something else. Oh wait...It is! We've got us another chapter for Justice Marvel in the house!**_

 _ **[audience cheers]**_

 _ **Flash: Took you long enough. Seriously, even by the standards of everyone else, this took forever to come out.**_

 _ **AN: Sorry, but I've been busy with some stuff IRL. I can't exactly drop everything to write 24/7 all the time, ya know. And besides, I do have other stories to update as well, but I promise, I am doing my best to update everything as quickly as I possibly can.**_

 _ **Green Lantern: Uh, can I just point out how it seems like you went back on something you said last chapter?**_

 _ **AN: Oh right, well, I don't want to give away any spoilers just yet, but once you guys get well into the story, you'll see what John's talking about.**_

 _ **Joker: Not to mention that we've got all kinds of little treats and goodies this time! Cameos, new faces making their Justice Marvel debut, and a little tip from Old Uncle J about something really important. Namely, the moment when Spider-Man and Bratgirl find a clue about Green Gobby, leading them to a team-up with...**_

 _ **AN: DAH! SPOILER! [hits control]**_

 _ **Joker: [gets rammed into by the Joker-mobile from Batman Arkham Knight] DOOOH! Ow! That...[looks to see previously mentioned vehicle now aiming all weapons at him] Whoopsie, time to run. [Runs away screaming]**_

 _ **AN: Phew, that was close. Anyways, before we get things started, I'd like to answer one review real quick. Namely that of "Dragon Rider 66". The, as you put it, "whole Wally West as Flash mentioning thing", is actually a reference to a little adventure that Ulrich and Aelita had off-screen, which will be given more light to later on in Code Avengers Cosmic, and will also serve as a little preview for one of my future Justice League crossover projects. And that's pretty much all I'm going to say for now. Or rather, it's all I can say without giving away the big surprise completely.**_

 _ **Well, now that we've got that out of the way, I'll let you all get to what you've been waiting four long months for. Enjoy!**_

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 13: Clash with the Conqueror**

It had been three weeks since most of the Justice League had vanished as a result of their battle against a mysterious, massive robotic menace, and it had only taken one of those weeks for things to start going to hell. No one really knew who this Kang person really was or where he had come from, aside from his claims that he came from the future, and while some were skeptical about those claims, after seeing what he had managed to accomplish, they were all quickly beginning to buy it. What would have taken others a few weeks at best, assuming that they were not stopped by the League or one of Earth's other heroes or teams, Kang had managed to do in just a matter of days. He had managed to summon entire armies and ships seemingly from out of nowhere in seconds, and the technology he used was so incredibly advanced that some of the best minds had trouble really comprehending it, assuming they had managed to get enough of a glance at the technology that was intact before they had to dodge the gunfire and explosions. Being the only members of the League who had not been blasted away, Superman and Batman both immediately took to action along with whatever allies they had formed over their time as heroes, such as Nightwing, Robin, Steel, Supergirl, and others like them, but they barely managed to survive most of their encounters with Kang's forces. As a result, the two remaining Leaguers and their allies were forced to go underground and attempt to form some kind of resistance, meaning Kang's armadas were now spread all across the Earth, practically dominating the planet as a show of the conqueror's victory in his plans to seize the planet under his rule.

Then again, that would imply that he was still going unopposed, but that was not the case, since there were still several areas of the Earth where various heroes, vigilantes, and even a known criminal or two were fighting back against Kang's forces. One such area was in the city of Malibu, where three armored heroes were all rocketing through the air or were racing across the ground as they fought back against the robots and ships that were threatening their home. Two of these armor clad heroes were Rescue and War Machine, both of which were either doing everything they could to destroy Kang's forces or keep any civilians in the area safe, while the third, who was leading the charge in both efforts, was none other than the original, red and gold clad armored hero himself: the invincible Iron Man. Three different kinds of repulsor blasts were lighting up the skies as the three fought, along with several different types of gunfire, missile barrages, and a few electromagnetic pulses as Team Iron Man fought back as best as they could, but even so, they had to admit that they might have been in a little over their heads in this fight, even if they had defeated an alien invasion on their own a few years ago.

"Please tell me that we're at least making a dent in their numbers," Rhodey asked his two best friends as he continued firing rounds from his wrist mounted machine guns while the one mounted on his shoulder spun around shooting at anything he was not.

"Like we'd really be able to tell from here," Rescue, alias Pepper Potts remarked as she let loose a barrage of energy bombs on a couple groups of Kang troopers. Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted a much larger, more heavily armed robot coming up behind Iron Man, and she immediately raised her arms towards as she shouted, "TONY, LOOK OUT!"

Iron Man spun around just in time to see the robot get shoved away by Rescue's electromagnetism, and he was quick to follow up said move by unleashing a blast from his unibeam, decimating the robot completely. "Thanks Rescue, and could you please not shout out my real name for the whole world to hear? We may be talking on suit-to-suit comms, but that doesn't mean your voice is completely muffled," Iron Man told his female partner.

"Sorry. Heat of the moment. You can't blame a girl for getting worried when her boyfriend's life is suddenly threatened by a giant, time-traveling, alien robot," Pepper defended as she created a shield around herself and Iron Man. "Besides, remind me again how many people know that Tony Stark is Iron Man?"

"Okay, Stane is in a coma, Ghost is…well, he's a mercenary that's wanted for several different crimes, so who would really believe him? And Black Panther gave his word that he would never tell," Iron Man argued.

"That's still a lot more people who know than it should be," Pepper pointed out. "Besides, what about that archer guy? Not Green Arrow or his buddies in Star City, but the other one who used to work with that redhead chick, Bird's Eye?"

"Hawkeye, and he hasn't been heard from in a long time," Iron Man replied.

"I'm pretty sure that Spider-Man knows, and maybe Batman," Rescue stated.

"Spidey probably _suspects_ something, and we've only teamed-up with him that one time in New York. Well, at least as a whole team, any way, and how could Batman know? We've never even met him," Iron Man corrected.

"Well, maybe not face-to-face, but he did contact us when he found out we were still out here fighting Kang, on our private comm. channel which you constantly say is nearly impossible to hack into."

"Hey uh, Tony, Pep? Any chance you could finish this little lover's quarrel at a point in time when we're _not_ fighting for our lives and those of the world's," War Machine interrupted as he jettisoned into the air in order to avoid being hit by a barrage from Kang's robots.

"Right. Sorry, Rhodey," the two instantly replied, and they were soon airborne as well. Once the three were all back-to-back with one another, they all unleashed a blast from their suits' unibeams, and destroyed a very decent amount of Kang's forces.

Upon landing on the ground again, the three let out sighs of relief when they realized that they had finally finished off the time-traveling soldiers in the area, but they knew that it would not last for long. It never did seem to. "Seriously, where the hell are the Justice League," Iron Man panted.

"Assuming that they're still alive," War Machine asked.

"Oh, if I knew that my first team-up with Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl was also going to be my last one before they died, I would've asked if I could take a few pictures with them," Rescue moaned.

"Really? That's what you're concerned about in that regard," Rhodey asked.

"I'm telling you guys, they're not dead. I'm sure of it," Tony insisted. "I had my computers scan that area after the battle to find out what really happened, and I picked up trace residues that would indicate that some kind of portal or a breach was opened, which meant that they were just teleported away to somewhere else."

"So where did they go," Rhodey asked once again. He and Pepper had already heard Tony's explanation on this quite a few times now, and they were no more convinced that this was not just his own attempt at keeping himself from considering the idea that Captain America was dead. The two had formed quite a close friendship ever since the super soldier showed up at Stark International's New York headquarters, and Rhodey had a feeling that Tony probably felt that having such a connection with Cap was somehow like having a real connection with his late father for some reason.

Before the billionaire genius could reply, they heard the sounds of people groaning in pain or weariness, which was soon followed by the sound of marching, metal footsteps, indicating that another wave was heading for them. "We'll pick this up later. Right now, we've still got a job to do," Iron Man stated as he stood up again. "Rescue, get as many people out of here as possible. War Machine, we're going to draw a line in the sand and hold it until she's done. None of them get past us, because if they do, we turn 'em to ash."

The two nodded in response to their friend's orders, and immediately stood up to carry out their assigned tasks. Still, even though the earlier questions had been put on the backburner for now, it did not mean that they were not still thinking about them.

* * *

Things were not much better in New York, to put it mildly, but then again, considering that this was the city were a great number of heroes seemed to hang their tights, be it occasionally or otherwise, that probably should not have come as a surprise. All across the Big Apple, heroes and vigilantes of various types were throwing whatever they had at the time-traveling invaders, among which included the red-clad, Billy Club wielding Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen, the gun-toting, lethal Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher, and even Silver Sable, who was actually in town taking a chance to relax before all the craziness with Kang had started. Out of all of these people though, only two really stood out, and those were the ones that had been entrusted to lead the New York resistance forces. As he swung through the air, firing off web-bullets and web-lines at anything he could in an attempt to stop his enemies, Spider-Man could not help but wonder just how he had let Batman talk him into such a position as this, until he glanced over at his current companion and remembered instantly. Because it was all her fault.

"Seriously, it's one thing that you horn in on my turf and decide to ignore me when I tell you to go home and leave Green Goblin to me, which you really should do, but helping your boss convince me to lead every costumed crime fighter in New York in an attempt to keep Kang from completely winning this war," Spider-Man shouted to the redhead who was leaping from rooftop to rooftop as she tossed out any variety of batarang she had available at the moment.

"I'm not going back to Gotham or leaving you to face Goblin alone no matter what you say, and besides, I didn't do anything to make you agree to be the New York Resistance leader. Well, one of them anyways," Batgirl retorted.

"Oh please, the minute I tried to refuse and say there was someone better, you practically hit me with the sad-puppy-look, and now, look where we are," Spider-Man retorted as he sling-shot himself into the air, allowing a pair of aerial attack drones to crash into one another a second later.

"Bull. I never once gave you any such look. Maybe you're just weak against redheads," was Batgirl's instant rebuttal before she tossed a pair of explosive batarangs into some drones that were waiting on the next rooftop ahead of her. The remaining drones were quick to try and attack the redheaded protégé of Batman, but Batgirl was easily able to avoid, counter, and deflect anything the human-like robots sent at her with a grace and skill that only someone with her training could have possessed.

 _"She actually might not be that far off. I mean, you have lost quite a few arguments with me in the past, Tiger,"_ Mary Jane said over Spidey's comm.

"Shut up, both of you," Spider-Man growled as he landed on top of a drone that was about to get the jump on Batgirl. A few sprays of webbing later, and any drones that were left were all soon scrap metal or just unable to fight due to being cocooned. "And Arachne, who's side are you on?"

"Hey, how about you flirt with your girlfriend later, and help me deal with the invaders from another time now," Batgirl shouted as she jumped off the ledge of the building and began gliding through the air through the use of her cape. She made a mental note to thank Bruce, Lucius, and Alfred for sending her the newly upgraded version of her suit when this was over, because the new features in it certainly made getting around New York a lot easier, and it saved her from having to worry about whether or not she could get her grapple out fast enough in some cases.

"First off, she's not my girlfriend; she's my partner," Spider-Man corrected as he dived down off the building as well, waiting until the last minute to fire off a web-line so he could deliver a powerful swing-kick into several drones as he followed after Batgirl. "Second, it's still your fault that I've stepped into all of this."

"Seriously? You're really blaming me for this," Batgirl asked as she tossed out some more batarangs, while taking a minute to do quick mental checklist of how much she had left of each gadget in her belt. Sadly, doing this prevented her from noticing the drone that was flying right at her as she glided down to the next rooftop.

"Yeah, yeah I am," Spider-Man retorted as he pulled Batgirl to safety behind some cover, having noticed the drone that she had not. He was soon having to shout the rest of his retort over a barrage of laser fire from both that drone and the several others that soon followed after it, but he did not really care seeing as he probably would have started shouting it at some point anyways. "You come and find me while I'm fighting some of these crazy, time-traveling robots, you help your boss convince me to take charge of the guys fighting here in New York, and then, ultimately, likely inevitably, we end up up-the-creak!"

"Okay, fine, if you want to be like that," Batgirl shrugged with a roll of her shoulders and her eyes. Having now finished her checklist, she could tell that she was starting to run low on everything, especially in the case of batarangs, and until they managed to shake their current enemies, she would not be able to get back to her apartment and restock. Thinking of that part of her civilian life suddenly made her wonder about a few other facets of her civilian life, including the few friends she had made since coming to this city. As a result, she could not stop herself from wondering aloud, "I hope they're all okay."

"Who, your teammates in Gotham? You do remember that one of them is the goddamn Batman, right? I'm sure he's fine," Spider-Man reminded her as he reloaded his web-shooters, noting that he was starting to run low on spare cartridges.

"Well, yeah, I'm worried about them, but I was actually referring to some friends of mine that I made since coming here. Especially in the case of…wait, why am I telling you this," Batgirl asked, having realized what she was doing.

"Maybe a desperate need to open up before possibly getting killed by the guys who are trying to either take over or destroy the world as we know it," Spider-Man suggested with a shrug. Seeing that his barb did not ease Batgirl's mood at all, he sighed a little and said, "For what it's worth, you're not the only who's worried about their friends from outside the hero life."

"You have friends outside of that suit? I can't help but wonder about that," Batgirl scoffed, hardly believing that, but that was mostly due to her own interactions with Spider-Man.

"Hey, I have a life outside the webs, thank you very much," Spider-Man snapped back. A second later, the two heard a loud bang that likely resulted from something really big crashing or getting blown up. Neither option seemed all that appealing at the moment, but they had to deal with it. "All right. If we're going down, we might as well go down fighting. On three?"

Batgirl could not help but jump a bit at the sound of more explosions, but she soon readied a pair of her last explosive batarangs, and nodded to the web-head, "Yeah."

"Ready…THREE," Spider-Man shouted as he vaulted over their cover with Batgirl right behind him. The two paused in their charge though when they saw that all of the robots were destroyed, and standing over them was a woman with dark hair, clad in a white outfit that left her shoulders and arms bare, blue gloves, and a blue belt with a light purple diamond strapped to one side of the belt. "…We were totally going to handle that," Spider-Man told the recent arrival.

"Sure you were, and I likely just saved you some webbing, and your girlfriend some batarangs. You're both welcome by the way," the brunette shrugged as she jumped over to the two.

"She's/I'm not my/his girlfriend," Spider-Man and Batgirl both shouted indignantly.

The brunette only smirked at the two before getting serious again. "Daredevil and Punisher are just finishing up in Hell's Kitchen, but Power Man and Iron Fist are getting swarmed in Harlem. They sent me to come and get you guys to see if either of you could help."

"And you couldn't just call because…" Spider-Man asked.

"Our comms were jammed, and besides, by the time I was able to use mine, I had already seen you guys taking cover," the brunette shrugged.

Spider-Man sighed at that explanation and said, "Alright, then let's get going. Lead the way, Jewel."

The now-identified Jewel just nodded to Spidey and then leapt into the air to fly back to where she had just come from, with the other two soon following behind her, leaving Batgirl a chance to ask something that had been bothering her lately. "What possessed Jewel's boyfriend to go with a name like 'Power Man'?"

"I have no idea," Spider-Man shrugged, not wanting to admit that he had actually been the one to start that little trend. Luke Cage was still pretty pissed at him about it, and the fact that his girlfriend had a crush on Peter Parker in high school did not really do the web-head any favors. There was one other more important matter to deal with though, and he decided to do so with gusto. "Speaking of which, you need to stop saying things at the same time as me whenever people voice the idea that we're in a relationship. It's gonna give them ideas."

"Or _you_ could stop saying things at the same time as _me_ ," Batgirl argued.

"Oh please. Bat-smarts might get you somewhere in Gotham, but here in New York, it's clear as day that I'm the real brains between us," Spider-Man scoffed.

"You saying I'm stupid," Batgirl growled.

"Hey, you're the one who attacked me because you mistook me for a hack, wannabe assassin, and needed me to spell it out for you that I wasn't Black Spider," Spider-Man reminded her. Yeah, he was not going to let that go any time soon, a fact that he was making clear to Batgirl every chance he could.

"Geez, would you two just get a room already? You sound like an old, married couple," Jewel called back over her shoulder. That silenced both spider and bat in an instant, and they shifted their focus to the more important matters. Of course, the silent glares that they threw at each other made it clear that they were not done with their previous discussion, and given the amused smirk on her face, one could only assume that Jewel had noticed it.

* * *

Things in Star City were just as bad as they were over in New York, but it could be argued that it was worse in Star City because of the fact that there were only three heroes defending it, and not one of them had powers. One of them was a guy in a military-grade Kevlar outfit with pistols that shot nonlethal rounds, while the other two were a couple of guys with bows and arrows. This was the group known as Team Arrow, consisting of Spartan, Speedy, and the first vigilante of Star City, from back when it was known as Starling, Green Arrow, formerly known as just The Arrow. Despite the fact that this little group was not very far up in there when it came to the ratings of powerful heroes, they were some of the most experienced, Green Arrow especially so, and they were more than able to prove it just by the fact that they had managed to give Kang's force a hard time with just the three of them and their tech support ally for the entirety of their time in Star City. Experienced or not though, that did not mean that they were not having it completely easy.

As he ducked around the enemy's bombardments and returned fire, Spartan could not help but groan a little once he had found whatever cover he could manage to find. "I swear to God, when did my life go from somewhat normal to this hell," Spartan demanded as he reloaded his guns.

"I'm pretty sure you were the one who said that normal went out the window after Flash, Dig" Speedy told his friend as he ducked around some lasers and notched a pair of arrows to fire. After firing said arrows and watching them blow up some drones on impact, Speedy then added, "Or maybe that was after Spider-Man. Remind me again, which one of them did we meet first?"

"In their hero identities or civilian, because we met Barry before he became the Flash," Spartan pointed out as he popped up from behind his cover to fire on some approaching drones. He did not stay up long enough to see if his shots had made any major impact before he ducked down again, and he added, "In either case though, we still met Spider-Man before we met Barry as the Flash."

"Dig, Roy, not the time," Green Arrow shouted, and a second later, a barrage of his own arrows were racing through the skies to destroy a number of drones of multiple sizes. He then jumped down from his perch, landing on top of a drone, and he only paused to glare at the destroyed machine before he stated, "If you're hearing this Kang, then listen closely. You are not welcome in this city."

He then pulled out an arrow that he stabbed through the drone's head, only to look up a minute later to see that another wave was already heading towards the three of them. Seeing this prompted Green Arrow to do something he did not really enjoy doing: he decided that it was time to call for help. "Overwatch, we might need some backup," the defender of Star City reported after tapping the comm. on his suit.

 _"Wait, are you actually asking for me to send you help,"_ a female voice asked in surprise.

"Yes. All three of us are," Spartan stated as he took aim with his guns.

 _"Wow, that's a first. I mean, Spartan and Speedy I understand, but even Ollie? It really is the end of the world."_

"Felicity! Just send us some damn help," Oliver snapped, more than annoyed by his teammate's need to joke around in such a serious moment.

* * *

"Sorry, sorry, and sorry again, because we can't really send anyone to you guys right now," a blonde woman in a smart, casual business attire and glasses replied over the private comm. she used specifically for her work with Team Arrow while analyzing several different monitors that were before her, each of which were currently displaying real-time data on both the status of the various areas of the world, and even showing the various superheroes who were currently fighting across the world. "Everyone's busy with fighting their own battles. You really picked a bad time to learn how to ask for help."

"If I'm reading this right, it looks like Vixen, Ant-Man, and Wasp should be in the area right now. They could get there fastest once they've finished," a serious voice pointed out to Felicity Smoak, alias Overwatch, prompting her to look back at the Dark Knight of Gotham himself, who was standing alongside Superman. "Can you have them head over once they're done?"

Felicity checked the readouts on her monitors, suppressing the urge to snip at Batman for trying to horn in on how her job is done, and confirmed the information that he saw. "Yep, and it looks like they've just about cleared out the area they're in." She then returned her attention to her previous communication and said, "Green Arrow, looks like you might be getting that help a bit sooner than I originally thought. Just hang in there a little longer."

As he listened to Felicity relay the rest of her tactical information, Superman could not help but look over the various monitors that were displaying the battles going on between the various people of the world, be they heroes or otherwise, and Kang's forces. He hated that they had to hide out in a S.T.A.R. Labs facility on the outskirts of Central City, but he knew why they had to do it, far more than he would have liked to know. The memory of what had happened to him and Kara when they had gone up with Batman and the others to fight the time traveling conqueror was still fresh in his mind, and he did not like it one bit. The weapons that Kang used may not have been laced with kryptonite, but it sure felt like they had been, and the entire fight had been a little too reminiscent of his past battles with Darkseid for his liking. Then again, not even the ruler of Apokolips had ever managed to do something this greatly destructive to the entire planet, and if he were being honest, that scared the Man of Steel a little bit.

As he glanced over monitors that showed the likes of Black Panther, the mutant heroes known as the X-Men, Nightwing, Robin, and even the Fantastic Four fighting back, this all just confirmed once again what he and all the others already knew. "We need to figure out a way to get Cap, Diana, and the others back."

"Yeah, tell me something we don't know, Superman," Felicity remarked as her fingers danced across her keyboards. "Vibe and Doctor Snow are still working on finding out what had happened to them, but they haven't managed to figure out what or even how to get them back from wherever they were sent to."

"In the meantime, we need to focus on finding a way to put an end to this fight before it gets any worse than it already has," Batman cut in. Before anyone could argue with him though, one of Felicity's computers started beeping, indicating that someone else was trying to contact them once again. Batman just narrowed his eyes behind his cowl, thinking that it was someone else calling for help, or that Spider-Man was calling to complain about Batgirl for some childish reason again, but that was quickly set aside when Felicity reported that it was from Caitlin Snow at the main S.T.A.R. Labs facility of Central City. "Put her on, now."

"Already done," Felicity replied, and a minute later, Caitlin's smiling visage was displayed on the main monitor.

 _"Hey, I've got good news for you guys,"_ Caitlin reported. She then stepped aside, and the three could only gasp in surprise when they saw Wonder Woman, Captain America, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter take her place.

 _"Sorry we've been gone so long, but we've been on quite the adventure,"_ Steve informed the group.

"We're just glad you're okay," Superman smiled in reply.

"Where the hell have you all been, and where's Flash," Batman asked, getting right to business, and noting that the Scarlet Speedster was missing from the group.

 _"The first one's a long story, but the second one is simple,"_ John revealed. _"Flash went with Vibe to get some backup that could help us deal with Kang."_

That had caught both caped heroes and Felicity by surprise, but Batman was still able to ask the all-important question. "How do you know about him?"

 _"We fought him in the place we had ended up at,"_ Hawkgirl stated.

"Which was," Superman prompted.

 _"A parallel dimension,"_ Captain America replied, clearly showing how he was still a bit perplexed by that in the expression on his face. _"We worked with a team of heroes from that universe to stop Kang and one of their own enemies before they helped us find a way to get back. We just didn't expect to get back at a point that was three weeks after we had left."_

 _"That's why Flash needed Vibe to get us some backup,"_ J'onn continued, but that was as far as he got, as the facility that the three were in suddenly shook under the force of an explosion. A second later, a massive, yellow and blue robot with long tentacles for arms smashed in with several Kang troopers following after it.

Jumping back to avoid being crush by one of the larger robot's tentacles, Batman instantly reached into his belt and retrieved some batarangs to throw at it as he shouted into the comm., "Tell us the rest later! We need backup at our location, now!"

 _"We'll be there soon,"_ Wonder Woman replied, and the screen went blank right at the same moment that Superman had moved to shield Felicity with his own body, unleashing a burst of heat vision after he had.

After Felicity found a chance to duck into cover and allow Superman to fight without shielding her, she was treated to the sight of the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight fighting side-by-side in the way that only they could, while at the same time, she could only worry about how soon the rest of the League would arrive and about how long the two would last. There was certainly no denying that these two, caped heroes were two of the greatest superheroes on Earth, but she had seen the reports on how well their last face-off with Kang's forces had gone, and that was when they had gone after him with help. This time, they were all on their own, not counting her, but what could Felicity do to help Superman and Batman? Throw a computer at them? Even so, there was something to be admired in the way that Batman managed to spin, duck, and flip around the room and between attacks while countering with nothing more than some batarangs or his bare hands, while Superman easily provided air support with well-placed blasts of heat vision and bashed through whatever drones came into his flight path.

Despite their best efforts though, they were still vastly outnumbered, and those numbers did not seem to decrease at all as time went on, no matter how many drones they smashed, bashed, and blasted. Even when they destroyed the larger robot that had crashed an opening into their hideout, another one seemed to take its place moments later, and it likely would have flattened Batman at a moment when his back was turned, had a sudden blast of green energy not sliced its arm off just at the last minute. Said blast ended up signaling the arrival of the rest of the League, minus Flash, and like that, the battle became all the more intense, between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern charging in to assist Superman in the aerial battle, while Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter dropped down to back up Batman in whatever way that they could, which was quite considerable, much to the Dark Knight's silent relief. With this new addition of fire power, the League was able to turn the tide quite a bit, right to the point where it seemed like they were driving Kang's forces back. At least it did, until the waves of enemy troops suddenly seemed to double if not triple in numbers, along with the number of larger robots, and like that, the Justice League was put back on the defensive while struggling to hold them back. The struggle was not all that great; if anything, one would argue that they were actually caught in a stand-still with neither side gaining any ground, but the fact that the greatest heroes on Earth were in such a situation was what really had anyone with any reasonable sense worried, assuming they were not on Kang's side of the fight. At this point it was starting to seem as though they would not be able to win even if the Flash was there with them, but that was quickly disproved when they received another bout of reinforcements, though it was not one that some of them were expecting.

It started when Batman was suddenly cornered by a small squad of Kang's more humanoid robots, and just when they were about to fire their weapons at him, a streak of gold passed between them, and the robots in question were all suddenly knocked away from the defender of Gotham, when he heard something fast come to a stop next to him, he looked to see Flash kneeling down to help him up, and figured that the scarlet speedster had been the one to save him just now. What he did not notice was that some of the weapons that were used by Kang's mechanized henchmen had been sliced apart, but he was going to figure that out soon enough once he had finished his brief conversation with the fastest man alive.

"Sorry I took so long to get here," Flash apologized. "Vibe and I jumped right back into S.T.A.R. Labs after the others had already left, but Caitlin filled us in on what was going on."

"Lucky you showed up when you did," was all Batman said as he nodded towards the robots that had previously had him cornered.

Flash glanced at said robots for a minute before he looked back at his teammate and said, "I wish I could take the credit for that one, Bats, but it wasn't me who did that. It was him."

Batman looked to where Flash had pointed at the end of his sentence, and if it were not for his vast amount of self-control, his eyes would likely have widened to the size of dinner plates at the sight before him. There, slashing and slicing through a variety of robots between bursts of super speed, was none other than the sword-wielding, brown and yellow clad Lyoko Avenger, Sprint Samurai himself, and he was not the only one who had arrived on the scene, because Angel Guardian had swooped in seconds later to blast apart some robots with some energy fields along with Ms. Marvel. Just seconds later, a barrage of arrows suddenly rained down and exploded upon impact with their targets, taking out multiple drones when they did, and drawing everyone's attention over to a man who was decked out in an odd, purple outfit that left most of his right arm bare, save for an arm band, arm guard, and his glove, with a bow held securely in his left hand as his right reached back to retrieve another arrow from the quiver on his back. A moment later, the unknown archer was soon joined by the jade giant himself, but the Leaguers who had met Hulk before could not help but note how his purple pants seemed to be in much better condition than they normally were, with not a tear to be seen. That aside, the one thing that had not changed about the Hulk was that he was readily smashing through anything in his path. Of course, there were some who could tell that he seemed to be doing so in a more focused, and directed way than was typical of the Hulk.

Green Lantern had been so caught up in watching the display that the new arrivals had been giving that he missed a sudden round of debris coming down from above him. Thankfully, someone else had noticed and reacted accordingly, and as a result, when John did look up, he was shocked to see all the rocks above him were encased in what appeared to be faint, scarlet energy tendrils. Turning to find who was holding the debris up, John's eyes eventually found a young woman with shoulder length brown hair that reached past her shoulders and green eyes that were narrowed in concentration, and she was decked out in black pants and boots, a dark red top, and a long scarlet red coat that reached her knees. When her eyes spotted some robots advancing on both her and Green Lantern, she waved her arms towards the mechanical attackers, and the rubble was soon flying into them along with a burst of scarlet energy that had erupted from her hands. Lantern was just about to comment on this mystery woman's sudden actions when a robot that was attempting to hit him from behind was suddenly blasted away by a vibrational blast from Vibe, who was decked out in his now completed hero suit of a black and burgundy jacket with yellow lines along the shoulders and collar, black pants, a pair of gauntlets, and the glasses he wore the last time John had met him.

"You might want to focus on the fight for now, Lantern," Cisco advised the Green Lantern of Earth before turning his attention to the next batch of robots.

Despite these surprise reinforcements, the League was still not sure they would be able to win the fight, until they saw Sprint Samurai suddenly tap his visor as if he were listening to someone on a radio frequency they could not access, and he then nodded to Angel Guardian, Ms. Marvel, and the scarlet-clad woman as he shouted, "We've got this! Go and help Jan take down the mothership!"

"On it," the three girls nodded, and they immediately blasted out of the room.

"Wait, where are they going," Superman asked. He was still confused as to who these new arrivals were, but he was putting it aside to focus on the fight at hand.

His answer came when the hole in the ceiling allowed them to see a massive, blue glow light up the sky above them, and then become replaced with none other than the yellow and black clad form of Giant-Woman, who was rearing back a fist for a powerful strike. An instant later, the group could all see what looked like a large flying saucer, which was clearly launching out all of the enemy forces that they had been fighting for the past few minutes. The scarlet-clad woman was soon holding the ship in place while Ms. Marvel and Angel Guardian bombarded it with energy blasts, and with another hit from Giant-Woman, the ship had been knocked out of the sky due to severe damage. Shortly afterwards, the ship began to let off a faint glow of its own before it vanished completely, and just seconds later, every single trooper and robot that had been deployed from it had vanished as well, securing victory for the heroes. At least, they thought they all had, but that was before one last robot tried to job Captain America from behind. "Tried" being the keyword, since the super soldier was saved at the last second by someone that no one other than the Avengers, Flash, and Vibe were expecting.

When the robot jumped at Cap, it was intercepted by an energy shield that was almost an exact duplicate of Cap's own shield, and upon turning to see who had thrown said shield as the energy disk returned to said individual, nearly everyone in the Justice League was shocked at the sight of said person. Even Batman was visibly shocked for a moment, for there, standing just a few feet away from him, with his energy shield still activated was a second Captain America! There were some notable differences of course, like the fact that this other Cap had a silver device on his left wrist which clearly generated the energy shield, and his suit also had some grey under the arms along with a white star inside of a red circle on either shoulder, but aside from that, there was no denying that this man definitely held a striking resemblance to Steve Rogers, right to the point where one would likely assume that he was Steve's long lost twin brother.

Batman was the first to come out of his shock, which was right after the three women who had previously left the room had rejoined them inside, along with Giant-Woman, who had shrunk down to become Wasp and then returned to normal size, and naturally, his first reaction was to arm a batarang to throw at these new guests as he growled, "Who are you people?"

"Who are they? I think we should be more concerned about who is _he_ ," Felicity pointed out as she indicated the other Captain America.

"Steve Rogers, alias Captain America of the Avengers," the other Cap stated.

"Uh, no, that's Captain America," Felicity pointed out as she indicated the Justice League's Cap. "I mean, I think he's Cap. Or maybe you are Cap, but then he would be…"

"Let me stop you and help you out, Overwatch," Vibe interrupted. He then pointed at the other Captain America with a wide smile and said, "Doppelganger."

Vibe's explanation did not give Batman any reason to stand down, so Flash took on the role of doing so as he raced over to stand between the Dark Knight and his friends from a parallel world. "Hey, easy Bats! They're on our side," Flash insisted.

"He's right. These are the heroes we were telling you about before, and they have already proven that they can be a great help with fighting Kang, both since they've defeated the one in their universe and since they helped us fight this one," J'onn explained as he and the rest of the League came to stand beside their teammates.

"Although, some of them are kinda new even for us," John noted, glancing at the archer, the Hulk, and the woman in scarlet.

"That still doesn't tell us who they are," Superman pointed out.

Flash took that as his cue to make the big introduction. "Superman, Batman, meet the mightiest heroes of another Earth: the Avengers, which apparently includes both Cap's and Hulk's doppelgangers."

The Avengers could only smirk with pride at the Leaguers, especially in regards to the two that most of them had not met until now, even as Wasp stepped forward and said, "And more importantly, we're here to help you save your world from Kang."

After a few brief, yet tense minutes, Batman finally stood down, having run through everything that had just happened recently in his head and asked them to start talking, while Felicity just grinned from where she was watching on, only able to utter three words. "Best. Team-up. Ever!"

* * *

It took a bit of time to get Superman and Batman up to speed on the story behind the Avengers, but thankfully, they were able to get the basic gist of things regarding the team from another universe, and right now, that was all that they really had time for. Kang's forces were constantly on the move, and that needed the attention of the two teams of heroes far more than anything else, so any socializing that anyone wanted to do would have to wait until a more appropriate and peaceful time. Once they had gotten through both the matter of the current situation, which Felicity helped speed along, and the matter of proper introductions, the combined force of two teams were more than ready to get to work on stopping the time-traveling conqueror. Well, they were almost ready.

"Okay, I think I've got it now," Superman muttered to himself, and he was soon pointing at each Avenger before him as he listed off each of the names he had just learned. "Ulrich Stern…"

"Sprint Samurai," the Lyoko Avenger nodded.

"Aelita…"

"Angel Guardian," the pinkette smiled.

"Wanda Maximoff…"

"Scarlet Witch," the woman in the dark red coat confirmed.

"Carol…"

"Danvers. Ms. Marvel," the blonde finished for the Man of Steel.

"Hulk…"

"And Banner's here too, not that he'll be much help," the jade giant grunted with a smirk, ignoring the indignant reply he received from his other half.

"Steve Rogers, obviously…"

"Captain America," the doppelganger of the super soldier nodded evenly.

"Janet van Dyne…"

"The Wasp, aka Giant-Woman," the size-changer filled in.

"And Clint Barton," Superman finally finished.

"Hmm," the purple clad archer hummed in confusion, until he realized what the Kryptonian was asking. "Oh, Hawkeye."

"So where are Black Panther and Iron Man," Diana asked.

At that question most of the Avengers flinched a little, much to the Leaguers' confusion, until Wasp stepped forward and explained, "Iron Man and Panther had to take a leave of absence from the team for…personal reasons."

"So if Iron Man's not on the team with you, who's leading the Avengers now? Your Captain America," Flash asked.

"Okay, can we not refer to Cap's doppelganger as Captain America? Seriously, that's gonna get confusing really fast. I'm just gonna call Avengers Cap 'Rogers,'" Cisco settled.

"Fine by me," the super soldier from the Avengers' universe agreed. "And to answer your question, Flash, no, I'm not leader of the Avengers."

"Why not? It makes sense to have you lead, if you ask me," Hawkgirl commented, and the rest of her team was soon voicing similar opinions.

"Cap's not…fit to lead at the moment," Aelita stated shortly, and from the sound of her tone, it was clear that was all the League was going to get.

"That still does not explain who your new leader is," J'onn pointed out.

A small cough drew everyone's attention to the size-changer of the Avengers, and Wasp was soon giving a small wave as she said, "Yeah, that would be me."

"Please tell me you're joking," John practically begged. When none of the Avengers said anything in response, the Green Lantern just groaned, "The Wasp leading a team that's basically another universe's version of the Justice League? Well, that's not an accident waiting to happen."

"Hey," Janet and Aelita both snapped, clearly not liking the sarcastic remark.

"He meant no offense by that, you two, but from what we saw when we met you all, I'm sure that none of us would've really expected Wasp to be the type to lead anything like your group," Diana quickly reassured both women, subtly throwing John a look as she did. She did not notice how, even through his cowl, Batman's eyes had narrowed in disbelief at this new information. The Dark Knight had met the Wasp of this world once before, and his impression of her did not lead him to think that she could lead anything other than a fashion show or a party, and if this Wasp was anything like theirs, he was all the more skeptical of how much help the Avengers were really going to be.

"Well a lot of things have happened in the three weeks since we last saw you guys, and Janet's actually proven herself to be a pretty good leader," Ulrich instantly said in his friend's defense.

"We don't need just 'pretty good,' we need someone who can actually help us in this situation," Batman pointed out, letting everyone know at least an idea of his opinion about these strange visitors from another universe.

"Look you Dracula-Wannabe, we didn't have to come here. We've got our own problems to deal with at the moment, but we figured that our own little crises could wait a few minutes while we helped you fight Kang, a guy that we took down without any Men of Steel, space rings, or anyone else in your Justice League. Not only that, but you've got all of that, and you're getting your asses kicked, so if you don't want our help, we can go at anytime, but I doubt you'll really last that long without us at this rate," Hawkeye snapped at the Dark Knight, entering into an intense glaring match that reminded Hulk of the time when the archer had come to him asking for help with the Leader.

After a minute or so, Superman stepped in to be the voice of reason and said, "We'll take any help you can give us, and right now, we do need it."

Batman stared between the Kryptonian and the Avengers for a minute before he finally asked, "What can you do for us?"

In response, Ulrich reached into his belt and produced a flash drive from it that he soon held out for all to see. "For starters, all the information on the nanotech cocktail that our Hank Pym came up with for when we fought Kang and Mandarin back in New York…um, our New York, just so we're clear," the Sprint Samurai explained

"But that one was mainly used on troops that were modified with the power of Mandarin's Makluan Rings, and didn't Hank say that it likely wouldn't work a second time since Kang's forces would've adapted to it afterwards," Hawkgirl reminded him.

"He did, and my boyfriend isn't a genius for nothing, ya know. He's already made a few modifications that should allow it to work just as well this time," Wasp elaborated.

"I'm sensing a 'but' coming," Captain America said.

"The downside is that in order to make sure that it will work effectively, we'll need to at least get a scan of your Kang's tech. If we have that, we can better guarantee that it won't burn out before it's hit a majority of, if not all of Kang's forces," Aelita informed them.

"And I doubt that we have the time necessary to create a vast amount of the devices that would deliver this nanotechnology like we did in your dimension," J'onn pointed out.

"Not to mention that there's no way that we could spread them all across the globe, even with me, Supes, Ms. Marvel, Sprint Samurai, and Green Lantern all working together," Flash added.

"We won't have to," Wasp said, earning confused looks from all of the Justice League. "This device just needs to be planted in one specific place in order to hit all of Kang's forces, and even if there do end up being some stragglers, they'll still be too harmless to really be much of a threat."

"And just where would this place be," Batman asked.

"Kang's ship, _Damocles_ Base, assuming that's what he calls it here," Rogers answered. "The last time the Avengers fought Kang, he commanded and controlled all of his forces from that single mothership, and we were able to send them all back to where they came from by taking over the ship's time drive. The only reason we didn't send our Kang and his ship back along with the rest of his forces was because doing so would have killed the woman Kang loved."

"And you're not worried that this _Damocles_ could be seized by Kang again," Batman questioned. Hearing that explanation made him wonder just how competent the Avengers really were. He did not like the idea of sacrificing one person's life to save the world, but given what their Kang was like, and what could possibly be on that ship of his, keeping the ship in this century would be a very bad idea.

"Well considering that the ship is now being used as the main base of operations for S.W.O.R.D., and that Kang and his troops are all locked up in Forty Two…yeah, I think we're good on that front," Ms. Marvel retorted.

"Uh what's Forty Two," Flash asked.

"It's a state-of-the-art supervillain prison that's located in another dimension, which is comprised of anti-matter. Even if the bad guys were to break out, which is highly unlikely, they wouldn't have anywhere to go," Aelita explained. "Kinda like the Phantom Zone."

"And you send every supervillain there," Superman asked, not liking what he was hearing, considering that he tended to avoid using the Phantom Zone projector on anyone other than the absolute worst of the worst, or if he had no other choice.

"Mostly the ones who've proven to be a serious threat to the world at large," Ulrich shrugged with a hum. "Unlike you guys, we prefer to not have to worry about dealing with the same world conquerors over and over again."

"What's that supposed to mean," Hawkgirl demanded.

"Remind me, how many times have guys like say…the Joker, Lex Luthor, Ra's al Ghul, Metallo, Two-Face, Reverse-Flash, Sinestro, and various other bad guys escaped from prison and threatened the world an additional time now," Hawkeye easily listed.

None of the Justice League could give any response to that other than silence, because the archer did have a point. Putting that aside, Batman stepped forward and practically snatched the flash drive from Ulrich's hand so that he could hand it over to Vibe and Felicity while asking, "Do you two think you can work with this?"

"Not a problem," Cisco confirmed, while Felicity nodded along in reply.

"Good, but that's only a start. We still have to find Kang's mothership and figure out a way to stop his other forces around the world, or at least slow them down," Batman then stated.

"Well, when he attacked our world, his ship was up in orbit, so you could try looking there first," Wasp suggested. "As for the smaller ships, that's a little easier to deal with, assuming the ships have a similar design to the ones that our Kang has. They all have a kind of…how did Hank describe it again?"

"Temporal stasis device," Hulk surprisingly answered.

"Right," Wasp nodded, not fazed in the slightest that Hulk had answered. "And they act like a kind of anchor that keep the ships in this time. So, just take out the anchor, and the ships are sent right back where they came from."

"Okay, so where would these anchors be," Superman asked.

"Most likely, it'd be on the bridge somewhere," Wanda pitched in, reminding everyone that she was still present, since she had not spoken in a while. "Just get someone on the bridge, have them blast all the controls, and the ship will likely be sent back."

"Along with whoever's on it," Steve pointed out.

"Actually, it would only take anything that didn't belong in this era with it, so even if one of our guys is on the ship, they wouldn't be sent away with the ship since they actually belong in this time," Aelita explained.

"Yeah, we're pretty much proof of that. I mean sure, they'd likely be left hanging several meters up in the air, but shouldn't be too much of a problem for anyone working with you guys, right," Wasp finished for the pinkette.

After taking in all of this new information, Overwatch was quick to inform the other teams of this, but Batman had her tell them to hold off on using the suggested strategy until they had properly tested it. Unsurprisingly, the Dark Knight had Spider-Man and Batgirl test the Avengers' theory, giving another Earth's mightiest heroes a chance to get a look at the web-swinger of this world when he did. It was only a few minutes later, well into the time that Cisco had gone off somewhere to work on the nanotech device that they would use to beat Kang that Spidey reported back with news of their success, and like that, the rest of the teams around the world were now fighting back with their new strategy. Despite this newest blessing, not everyone seemed all that thrilled about their newest company. To be more accurate though, it would be better to say that Batman was still extremely suspicious of the Avengers as a whole, never mind Rogers. Despite what the others had told him, the Dark Knight was not willing to trust these heroes from another universe, but given who he was, someone would probably be worried if he did trust them that easily.

Given such a mindset, it would also come as no surprise when he approached one of his recently returned teammates to discuss the matter. "Do you really think we can trust them," Batman asked Flash.

"Well, they do have a few problems of their own back home, and from what I can tell, it looks like they've gotten a few new ones in addition to the ones they had when we last saw them. If they wanted to, they probably could've found some way to make us stay on their Earth just so we could keep helping them, but they found a way to get us back, and helped us learn a bit on how to fight Kang. They're definitely cool," Flash informed him.

Batman was not willing to leave it at that though, as he noticed that a good number of the Avengers were throwing suspicious glances at Rogers every now and then. Not all of them were doing so, but there were definitely some doing it more than others, and while anyone else would have missed it, you would be silly to think that Batman would have not noticed at all. "It doesn't seem like they're too fond of Rogers," the Dark Knight noted aloud. "And why do you think that their Iron Man and Black Panther really left their team?"

"Like we said, personal problems," Ms. Marvel stated, cutting into the conversation, and startling Flash a little since he did not notice her approach. "Look, I get how you have some kind of self-appointed need to know everything about everyone around you, and that you seem to think that you need to be ready for some inevitable moment when the good guys go bad or something, but we're not from your universe. Whatever we're dealing with is none of your concern, and I would appreciate it if you kept your cowl out of it."

Batman did not say anything to the blonde and just turned away. Needless to say, the confrontation between the two did not go unnoticed, as evident when Hawkgirl sarcastically remarked, "Batman really seems to be getting along _well_ with the Avengers." When Diana only hummed in reply, the winged heroine turned to see that her friend was glancing between the two similar, yet still different super soldiers. "Something bothering you, Princess?"

"It's just…It's hard to believe that there could really be someone who's so similar yet so different from a person we know," Diana admitted. "I know that we already knew that from meeting the Spider-Man from the Avengers' world, but now that I'm seeing both him and his doppelganger standing in the same room together…"

"I know what you mean," Hawkgirl nodded as she looked between the two as well. "Still, you have to admit, having two Captain Americas on our side is definitely going to be something that will spell trouble for Kang."

That earned a small laugh from the Amazon, and also helped to serve as a way for everyone to resume working with more focused minds. Part of that meant getting everyone acquainted with what each person was capable of, at least in regards to those who had not met each other yet. Many of the Avengers were a bit nervous about letting Batman know their limits and what they could do (they were more than familiar with what the Dark Knight would do with such information thanks to reading about him back on their Earth), but given what they were up against, it was definitely better for everyone to know that information now rather than later when it really mattered most. Aside from that nervousness though, another thing that the League noticed about the Avengers was that they were not really willing to open up about the full reasons as to why Iron Man and Black Panther had left. Sure, that was already proven by Ms. Marvel's earlier discussion with Batman, but the point was further enforced when the Leaguers that had actually met the Avengers before tried to ask about it. Not even Ulrich and Aelita were saying anything when they were asked by Flash and Hawkgirl, respectively, so the League eventually decided to drop the matter. It was not like it really mattered all that much in their current situation.

The Avengers continued to prove how helpful they could be when Aelita lent her services to Cisco and Felicity with developing the nanotech virus they would use on Kang's ship. It made sense that one of the brighter minds of the Avengers would lend a hand with such a project, given that it did come from their world and was originally created by one of their scientists, so despite how confident they were in their abilities, the two science geniuses were very grateful for the pinkette's help. They were a bit surprised by just how bright Aelita really was when she started to really showcase her scientific abilities, but that was easily shaken off, at least in comparison to the revelation that Aelita's hair was naturally pink. A few hours later, the little miracle of nanotechnology was finally finished, and now all that was left to do was find Kang's ship and get it onto said ship's time drive. The former of those two goals was easily resolved thanks to a search program Felicity had started up just before going to help Aelita and Cisco with the nanotech device, and as for the latter…unsurprisingly, Batman had something in mind.

* * *

"Well look at that. Kang's ship is in Earth's orbit just. Now who could've guessed that? Oh wait; we did. You're welcome by the way, Batman," Hawkeye mocked as he and the others flew up to Kang's ship in the Javelin, only to receive the infamous Bat-Glare in response for his teasing. The archer just shrugged it off like it was nothing though, but he did remain silent as he lay back in his seat with his arms resting behind his head.

Everyone was relieved to know that the League's usual method of transportation was still available to them, even after Kang had caused Superman and Batman to be stuck on Earth, but after realizing just how close Kang was to the Watchtower, no one could help but wonder how it was that the League's space-based headquarters had not picked up on the conqueror's ship until now. The exact answer was likely a very complex one, but they all figured that the simplest explanation was that Kang had cloaking technology that was extremely advanced, seeing as he, his forces, and all of their ships were from the future, and decided to just leave it at that. Of course, it was that same line of thinking that made many of the Leaguers nervous. Last time most of them had fought Kang, they had done so in Times Square, New York, and while he was indeed powerful, with or without his army, they still had something of a home field advantage over him. This time, they would be fighting the self-proclaimed master of time on his turf, and there was no telling just what advantages that would give him. The Avengers were also nervous, but their main reasons for being so was due to the fact that this Kang had proven he was different from the one that they had fought against, and because they were flying into this without their space armors. Sure, they probably did not need them that much, but it would have been a nice comfort to have knowing that they were going up into space to fight someone on a spaceship.

"Remind me again why we didn't just ask Vibe to send us back home so we could get the space armors," Wanda asked her teammates from where she was sitting.

"Because there wasn't time," Wasp stated. "Every second we waste is another one in which Kang could be getting closer to taking over the League's world. Right now, we can't afford to hold off on anything for that long. Their world is already teetering a lot closer to the edge of falling under Kang's rule than ours was when he attacked, so if we want to stop him, we have to do it now."

"Wasp's right. We can't wait around, and we can't let anything slow us down," Superman stated, only to cringe a bit as the Javelin came under fire by a fleet of ships that were guarding _Damocles_. When the Javelin took additional hits afterwards, the Man of Steel turned control of the ship over to Batman before moving to grab a space suit and telling John, "Lantern, you're with me. Let's go give these guys something else to deal with so that the others can get inside _Damocles_."

"Right," John nodded, a green aura of protection already forming around him as he stood up from his seat.

"We'll meet you all inside as soon as we can," Superman then told the rest of the team.

"Don't take too long. I might not leave anything for you guys," Hulk smirked.

Superman just smirked back in reply as he finished securing a space helmet, and then flew out of the Javelin with Green Lantern. Although some of the Avengers could not help but wonder why he bothered putting on a space suit when he did not really need it, they did not question it, because they had more important things to worry about, like the fact that there were still a few ships attacking the Javelin despite Superman and Green Lantern's attempts to draw them off. Now normally, Batman would have been able to handle flying the ship and shooting back under these circumstances, but even the Dark Knight of Gotham City had his limits, and since he needed to put most of his focus on flying straight for Kang's ship, he could not really think about using the Javelin's weapons too much, and that was beginning to wear on them all.

After feeling the ship shake under another explosion, Hawkeye had finally had enough, and he instantly sprang from his seat and over to the controls that Superman had previously abandoned, much to Batman's protests. Said protests quickly died when the archer shouted, "You just focus on flying this thing! Leave shooting these guys down to a guy who really does have impeccable aim."

Hawkeye's point was quickly punctuated when he managed to down four of Kang's attack squad in just two, seemingly easy shots, much to the League's impression, and Batman just grunted in acceptance of the archer's sudden assistance before returning his attention to flying the ship as requested. From that point on, the Javelin was easily able to swerve and weave through the attacking space crafts, while simultaneously firing on any ships that slipped away from fighting Superman and Green Lantern to get in its way. This was not all that often of course, seeing as Green Lantern's limits to what he could conjure up with his ring were only in his mind while Superman was able to barrel through most of the enemies that came into his line of sight or path, so getting to _Damocles_ was pretty much a cinch from that point onwards. When they did reach the ship though, they soon encountered a few defenses on the vessel itself, such as gun turrets and the like, quite a few were easily dispatched by the Javelin, while the rest were eliminated by a blast from Green Lantern, but there were still quite a few left to pepper the Javelin with very deadly laser fire.

Eventually, Ms. Marvel had jumped out of her seat as well, and was soon blasting out of the Javelin to join the other two heroes in their space battle, showcasing her ability to survive in Outer Space without a spacesuit to the League, and soon enough, the starry skies were ablaze with her golden energy blasts as she destroyed whatever weaponry that _Damocles_ had left on it. At one point during her attack, the gunners on _Damocles_ decided to turn most of their attention to the blonde, but the only thing their weapons seemed to do was empower her even more, because she easily absorbed every last bolt of energy thrown at her, granting even more strength and energy to throw out at _Damocles_. In no time at all, any defenses on the exterior of _Damocles_ that could prove to be an immediate threat to the two teams of heroes were all eliminated, leaving Green Lantern, Ms. Marvel, and Superman to return their attention to the attack drones that were still attempting to swarm the Javelin as the rest of their teams looked for a way to get into the hangar.

They did not seem to be looking for long, as the Javelin's boarding ramp lowered once again, this time depositing Hulk from the ship, who was wearing an oxygen mask that he found on the ship before going out. The minute the gamma powered hero had reached the end of the ramp, he instantly leaped towards the door into the hangar before them with a roar, and smashed his way into the ship, leaving a massive hole that was big enough for the Javelin to get through. When the other three heard Wasp tell them to follow right after them, they quickly broke off their attack and chased after the Javelin as it flew into _Damocles_. It was a good thing they had, because just seconds after Superman had passed through the Hulk-made entrance, a force field was thrown up over said opening, trapping them all inside, and allowing the hangar to become filled with fresh oxygen to replace the supply that had escaped after Hulk had broken through the entrance.

"That was about as fun as the last time," Hulk smirked as he discarded his oxygen mask.

"You have a very strange idea of fun," Green Lantern told the big guy, making sure that he was not in arm's reach of the Hulk when he did. He had already been punched by his Earth's Hulk once before, and he had no desire for a repeat of the experience, be it from the Hulk's doppelganger or otherwise.

The conversation was quickly brought to a close as the rest of the combined team came out of the Javelin with Batman and Wasp in the lead, and the Avengers all tensed as if they were expecting an attack at any second. It came as no surprise that they were like that to the League, seeing as the Avengers had dealt with a similar situation before, so they made sure to keep their eyes peeled for anything as well as they spoke to the Avengers about what they should do next in this crazy plan. "How do we find the time drive," Batman asked.

"The last time we had to do this, we had used Hank Pym's robotic assistant, Ultron to track down a large source of tachyon particles. Don't suppose you've got something in your belt that could do that, do you, Batman," Sprint Samurai asked as he kept a saber ready for action.

"Maybe I could try and find it," Flash suggested, and no one needed to guess as to how he planned to do that.

"Considering how Kang was able to deal with you the last time you guys encountered him, I don't think that would be a good idea," Wanda pointed out.

"How would you know? You weren't even there."

"Angel Guardian filled me in."

"Perhaps I could scan the minds of one of Kang's men," J'onn offered.

"Aren't most of this Kang's army robots? How would you read their minds if they're all machines," Hawkeye asked.

J'onn had nothing to say in response to that, and before anyone could give another suggestion, Superman announced, "I think I might have found it." When everyone gave him odd looks, the Man of Steel just shrugged and pointed out, "I do have other varieties of super vision besides X-Ray, and I'm able to see at least two really hot points on this place with my inferred vision. One of which might be the engine or whatever you want to call this ship's power source, but the other one definitely seems like it could be the time drive, coming from that direction."

"I'm picking up a trace of tachyons in that direction as well, so that might be it," Green Lantern reported as he scanned the area with his ring.

"Then let's move. We don't have a minute to waste," Batman ordered.

"You heard the man, Avengers," Wasp informed her team, and like that, the two groups were racing off in the direction of what they believed to be the _Damocles_ ' time drive.

* * *

The trek through _Damocles_ was expected to be a trial in and of itself, with various troops, defenses, and traps waiting around every single corner, but strangely enough, no matter where or how deeply into the ship the two teams went, they found almost none of that. Yes, they did encounter a security guard or two every now and again, along with the occasional laser turret that was embedded in either the walls or ceiling, but aside from that, they met absolutely no resistance. No one was complaining about this of course, but considering where they were heading, there was just something in the lack of security that left many of them feeling nervous. The time drive was a vital part of Kang's plans, as well as his mothership, and they were essentially making an attack run on it, so the reason why it would be left with so little guard or protection could only mean two things: either Kang was extremely overconfident and believed that no one could actually pose that great of a threat to him, or they were all running headlong into a trap that was likely to be sprung at any minute. Seeing that it was far too late for them to turn back, the heroes just pressed on and figured that if they were walking into a trap, all they could do now was spring it and hope for the best.

At last, they finally reached the time drive, and though the Avengers had seen the device before when they had encountered the Kang of their universe and afterwards in some cases, they were still left in awe of the device. Not to the same extent as the Justice League of course, but awestruck nonetheless. The time drive itself appeared to be a massive tube running all around and out the room at certain points in the walls, and in the center, the tube was connected to a massive, cylindrical tower which seemed to be something of a regulator for the drive itself. Inside the tube, the heroes could see what appeared to be glowing, yellowish-green energy streams racing through it at a speed that could only match a speedster, while the tower in the center had a faint blue glow around it, shinning through the various lights and panels on its sides. There seemed to be a few control panels at the base of the tower, while the top of it narrowed in a cone-shaped style before returning to a smaller, cylindrical shape and going out of the ceiling, indicating that there was no point on the ship that the time drive was connected to, and further proving how disabling it would end Kang's invasion for good. Despite all the wonders of this miracle of future technology, there was one other thing in the room that had the League's and the Avengers' attention, and that was the sole occupant of the room, who was smirking down at them like a mad man.

"I must admit, I do applaud you for your bravery in coming here, Justice League, even if you did bring allies from another universe, but then again, I can't help but wonder if it's bravery or foolishness that drove you to such a desperate plan," said the time traveling warlord himself as he stood up from where he was seated, proving that he was waiting for them, his fancy wrist weapon of many skills already forming around his right hand. Kang then looked over the Avengers with a smirk of amusement and added, "Perhaps it is foolishness, considering that these Avengers are not even half the force they once were or even could be should they survive this battle."

"Oh you're just asking for me to put an arrow through both of your eyes, aren't you," Hawkeye growled as he notched two arrows, already prepared to fire.

"Easy Clint. He's just trying to goad us into attacking him recklessly," Wasp cautioned, even as she readied her stingers to fire at a second's notice. That honestly surprised Batman a little, as he had not expected such a levelheaded warning from Wasp, given what he knew of the insect-themed hero and her doppelganger, but he filed that little note away for later as he joined the rest of the heroes in bracing themselves for a fight.

"Still, the fact that you came here proves that you are clever little insects, but still insects all the same. Perhaps I should educate you all on what happens when an insect meets a boot," Kang mocked, and a second later, his weapon had fired at the team in a wide beam that would likely knock several of them out of the fight at once, if not kill them.

Reacting quickly, Rogers rolled to the front of the group, activated his photon shield, and then expanded it to a larger size, allowing him to block everyone that the beam could have hit. That served as the signal for the group to attack, and attack they did. While Green Lantern, Ms. Marvel, Angel Guardian, and Scarlet Witch all attacked from a distance with their respective energy blasts, or telekinetic blast in Wanda's case, most of the others went for a more up-close approach and simply charged at Kang, save for Batman and Hawkeye, who let loose a flurry of batarangs and arrows, as a start. There was a very serious downside to this attack strategy though, as many people would tell you: the guys who were charging Kang head-on had not waited long enough for the smoke to clear in order to see if the long-range attacks that were thrown at him had any effect, and as such, they did not know that Kang had managed to throw up a shield around him at just the last second before said attacks could hit. Since he had not been harmed or even moved from his position by the energy blasts, he was easily ready for the charging heroes, and managed to blast J'onn into Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman into Hulk, and Rogers into Captain America easily. He did of course have to slow down time in order to deal with Flash and Sprint Samurai, but despite that, the two speedsters were still easily knocked off balance by Kang's efforts. When Superman was about to collide with him Kang merely slowed time enough so that it appeared the Man of Steel was not moving at all from his perspective, and then used his wrist device to rotate the last son of Krypton so that he would end up flying right into Ms. Marvel or Green Lantern. When time resumed, the results of Kang's work soon came into effect, and Superman was lucky to be able to slow his charge enough before colliding with the two airborne heroes so that they would not be too injured afterwards.

Kang then turned a weary gaze towards Batman as he charged in, with Hawkeye providing him with covering fire, and simply raised his wrist weapon to blast the Dark Knight. Thankfully, Batman rolled out of the way, and quickly began throwing out a variety of jabs, punches, and kicks in an attempt to at least knock Kang off balance, but they were just as effective as Hawkeye's arrows were proving to be, as every impact only collided with the energy shield that seemed to instinctively form around Kang every time one of the two powerless heroes attacked. When Angel Guardian flew in with an energy-charged fist, Kang slowed time down again then simply stepped to the side so that the pinkette would fly past him and into Batman, causing her to hit the Gothamite as a result, and then tumble across the floor with him seconds later while Hawkeye leapt to the side so that he was not bowled over as well.

"Sorry," Aelita quickly apologized as she rolled back to her feet, praying that her energy impact had not inflicted any injuries to Batman.

Thankfully, Batman's suit was designed to be a lot tougher than it looked, and made it so that most bullets had little effect against him if he was ever careless enough to get hit by them. Combine that with the years of training he put in to becoming Batman, and the Dark Knight was able to shake off Aelita's attack with relatively little pain. It still hurt quite a bit, but he was sure that nothing had been broken or damaged, both when it came to his suit and his body. This point was easily proven when he slowly but surely rolled back to his feet as well and narrowed his gaze at Kang, barely even acknowledging Aelita's apology as he studied the master of time's battle style while the rest of his teammates fought against him, tooth and nail. Even now, that training of his was working its wonders, because it was allowing him to thoroughly study the patterns of his enemy with just a few simple glances while he tried his best to come up with a strategy. Sadly, it did not seem like he was having much luck at the moment.

"We're not getting anywhere like this. We have to get to the time drive before this gets any further out of control," Batman stated bluntly.

"Yeah, we figured," Wasp remarked as she flew over so that she was floating next to the Dark Knight, her wings buzzing in his ear. "And we're not going to get anywhere by taking the direct route, so I say we go for something a little more roundabout."

Batman arched an eyebrow at the miniaturized heroine, but was soon paying rapt attention to every word she said after that last half of her sentence. By the time Wasp was done explaining her plan, Batman had to admit that he was starting to see why the Avengers had named her their new leader. He then simply nodded to her, and that was all the signal that Wasp needed to fly directly at Kang, and begin peppering him with a barrage of her stingers. The barrage of bio-energy blasts left Kang a bit disoriented, since they were coming from something that was too small for his usual defenses to react accordingly, and that gave Superman and Hulk the opening they needed to charge in and deliver a pair of powerful haymakers right to the warlord's front. The combined blows were so powerful, that Kang was knocked into the air and left vulnerable to the energy blasts that Green Lantern and Ms. Marvel had sent his way, which sent him crashing down to the ground again just in time to be assaulted by a combined assault from Wonder Woman and Scarlet Witch.

Flash and Sprint Samurai then took a turn at distracting Kang by delivering several high-speed blows to the conqueror, and while most of their blows did not get through Kang's shield, they were still plentiful enough for J'onn to slip through unnoticed and deliver a powerful right cross. Kang's pain did not stop there, as Hawkeye fired another barrage of explosive arrows, while Angel Guardian hit him with a pair of energy fields, keeping him in the air for a few more moments, a feat that was made even longer when he was struck when both Captain Americas hit him with powerful shield throws, until he finally came to a halt when he was grabbed by the massive hand of Giant-Woman. "You sure you didn't have that backwards when you were calling someone insects, Kang," Wasp mocked with a wide smirk on her face as she tightened her grip on the time traveler.

That proved to be the final straw for Kang, as his entire armor suddenly seemed to light up with energy before it was unleashed in a powerful shockwave that seriously hurt Janet to the point where she was forced to release him from her hold. "ENOUGH," Kang roared. "I will not tolerate your interference any longer! Your world will fall subject to my rule, and if you wish to continue your attempts at resistance, then perhaps I should remind you all of what happens when a mere boot is not enough to stamp out the infestation of bugs."

The very moment that Kang's feet had landed on the floor again, a large, holographic screen appeared above him and the heroes, displaying a map of the Earth, along with several target reticules, which were highlighting Metropolis, Gotham, Central City, New York, and every other city that either the Justice League or their allies were defending. Seeing this, everyone's eyes all widened in horror at the realization of what Kang was planning. "You wouldn't dare," Superman started to say.

"Oh but I would, kryptonian," Kang replied with a maniacal smirk. "I will wipe out every single city where so much as one resister is located, until they and their homes are nothing but dust." The heroes were instantly preparing to charge, when Kang tossed out a few small spheres that encased them all in what appeared to be an intense electrical field, forcing them all to their knees, including Superman and Ms. Marvel, and the conqueror then finished, "And just to make it all the sweeter, I will force each of you to watch as your homes are all wiped out one by one."

"Not today," a deep voice growled from the shadows behind Kang. When the ruler of the Forty First Century turned to face the speaker, he was met with the descending form of Batman, right when the Dark Knight's boot collided with his face. Kang barely even registered any other actions that Batman had made afterwards, because the second he realized that the Dark Knight had landed on the floor again, Kang turned his weapon on him and extended it out into a pair of tendrils that grabbed Batman, and allowed Kang to throw him across the room and into one of the tubes of the time drive.

"Did you really believe that you could defeat me with a simple _sneak_ _attack_ , you pathetic, little man," Kang scoffed.

Unsurprisingly, Batman's expression remained in its usual, neutral frown, but one would have to say that there was a bare hint of boasting in his tone as he replied, "I wasn't really trying to. I just needed you distracted."

"Distracted? From what," Kang demanded. He received his answer a second later when his belt and wrist gauntlets suddenly began sparking uncontrollably, and then exploded, knocking him off his feet and freeing the other heroes once they had. Looking at his destroyed devices, Kang could only snarl as he turned to glare at the Dark Knight and demanded, "What did you do?"

"I used some of your tech with some of my own to sabotage your little time-control devices. It was easy to notice how every time you manipulate time to your advantage, you always hit a control on either your belt or one of your gauntlets, but coming up with something that would effectively destroy them was another matter," Batman explained.

"Thankfully, he had us to keep you busy while he slipped away to get some things that would augment his gadgets enough to do the job," Wasp finished with a smirk.

"And I'm guessing that's not all he was able to do," Hawkeye noted.

Before anyone could ask what the archer meant by that, the time drive suddenly started to power up, while an automated announcement sounded over the ship's speakers. _"Warning: Time Drive has been compromised. Forced trans-temporal jump of all forces is now in progress."_

That was not something Kang had expected to hear, and he was not pleased to hear it at all, to put it mildly. "Bridge, what the hell is happening?!"

 _"Unknown, Lord Kang. Somehow, all systems holding us in this time period just suddenly began failing."_

"Then correct it," Kang snarled.

 _"We've tried, sir. Nothing's working. The entire fleet is disappearing in droves!"_

Kang's glare intensified while the other heroes realized what was happening. "You got the nanotech device onto the time drive," Captain America gasped, looking at Batman.

While the Dark Knight only smirked in confirmation, Kang's reaction was decidedly much more hostile as he reached into what was left of his belt and withdrew a pair of staffs that extended into a futuristic sword and battle axe. "I will not be beaten by a bunch of Neanderthals! If I am forced from this century, then I will at least take pleasure in destroying you all first!"

Right when he had made that declaration, Kang released a blast of energy from his battle axe that was aimed directly at Batman, only for the blast to be blocked by Superman a second later. "You won't be destroying anything else in this century," the Man of Steel stated. "Justice League…"

"Avengers…" Wasp shouted.

"Into action/Assemble," the two then shouted together, and at once, the two teams were engaging Kang once again.

Despite his impressive weaponry and skills, Kang found himself ultimately outmatched by the combined might of the Justice League and the Avengers once again, as every blow that a member of one team made against him was supplemented by a blow from a member of the other team. It started with a combined blow from Martian Manhunter and Hulk, which was soon followed by a combined aerial attack by Hawkgirl and Angel Guardian, the latter blasting away at the master of time while she and the former got in close for a direct assault. As he rolled back across the ground from these two assaults, Kang quickly attempted to bring one of his weapons up in defense against Green Lantern's barrage of energy blasts, but the weapon in question quickly started to malfunction due to being struck by Scarlet Witch's probability powers, and as a result, one such blast got through, leaving him open for Wasp and Wonder Woman's combined strike. Flash and Sprint Samurai were the next ones to attack, as the two speedsters were able to easily overpower Kang with their combined high-speed strikes, leaving him open for when Hawkeye and Batman managed to nail him with one arrow and batarang, each. The final strike came when Superman and Ms. Marvel flew in and delivered powerful blows that shattered Kang's weapons in an instant when he tried using them to defend himself, and as a result, he was left vulnerable to the shield tackles that the two Captain Americas delivered afterwards, and was subsequently sent flying into the tube that made up part of the time drive as a result.

When the attacks finally ceased, Kang found himself struggling to stand, while the heroes all glared down at him, but even so, Kang still found a reason to smirk at the heroes. "You are all fools," Kang chuckled through his pain. "The minute that the time drive shuts down and sends me back to my time, not only will my crew and I begin making repairs to it, but you will all be left adrift in the vastness of Space. While that may not be a problem for some of you, the rest will most certainly die a quick, suffocating death."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Aelita revealed. "We made a few modifications to that little nanotech cocktail that we injected into your time drive from the last time we met. The minute its run its course, it will ensure that your time drive will be far beyond repair, even with your capabilities and resources. It was actually something we had been holding onto in case we ever had to deal with our Kang and his fleet again, but were never able to properly finish. Thankfully, we had a little extra help from this side of reality in the form of our friends Vibe and Overwatch."

"As for the whole thing about getting stuck out in space, you do remember that we've got a guy on our side who can just throw up a shield around everyone that will let us breathe and fly through space with just a thought, right," Flash pointed out with a wave towards John.

Kang's eyes widened, proving he had not considered that at all, and the last thing that was heard from him was a loud roar of anger as he and his ship disappeared, leaving only the Justice League and Avengers where it had once been, with those who could not survive in space safely wrapped inside of an energy bubble that Green Lantern had made with his ring, just as Flash said they would be. Seeing this sight, everyone on both teams could only smirk in satisfaction at their victory while they made their way back to Earth, eager to join the rest of their allies in celebration of their victory.

* * *

After retrieving the Javelin and getting back to Earth, the League all breathed sighs of relief when they saw absolutely no trace of Kang's forces anywhere in the skies, on the ground, or anywhere else. There was still a great deal of rubble and debris to clean up, sure, but that was a matter that could be easily taken care of, and it was already being dealt with thanks to some of the various heroes that had stayed on Earth to fight the good fight, such as Team Iron Man, Spider-Man, Aquaman, and even a few heroes that had not joined up with Superman and Batman's little resistance force. The League did still help out of course, and the Avengers were happy to lend a hand as well, but they did make sure that Hulk and Rogers stayed back at the S.T.A.R. Labs facility that Superman and Batman had been using as a base during Kang's invasion. The Hulk had stayed behind for obvious reasons, and because the one from this Earth had already been sighted in a few areas helping to clean up, much to some people's shock, and Rogers…well, no one was all too eager to try and think of a reason to explain why there were suddenly two Captain Americas out and about.

It took quite a while before the damage was finally dealt with, but when the most serious and major problems were finally fixed, the League and the Avengers decided that it would be okay to let local authorities and the rest of the usual repair crews handle what was left, and as a result, they soon found themselves taking a moment to relax with the one another before the mightiest heroes of another Earth had to head home. Like Hawkeye had said earlier, they did still have some problems of their own to deal with, and the League did not want to keep them away from their world for too long. Still, that did not mean that they could not at least take a moment to grab a few bites to eat while joining in the celebrations of their victory.

In that time, each of the Avengers were happily regaling the Leaguers with some stories of their previous exploits, both personal and with the Avengers, and while each Avenger had their own stories to tell, and their own colorful ways of doing so, it was really Ulrich and Aelita who had more adventures to talk about than anyone else. It was not really that much of a surprise, seeing as they had been working as heroes far longer than anyone else on the Avengers, and the fact that these two kids had been saving the world for so long was something that still left all of the League very impressed, including Superman and Batman. In fact, when the Dark Knight had finally been told about how Ulrich and Aelita had been fighting evil since they were in Junior High, his respect for the two actually grew a little more, and he found himself finally willing to start trusting them as much as he would his own allies, along with the rest of the Avengers. Right at this very moment, the Avengers were telling the League about their adventures in Asgard, and they had just come to the point where they had started to fight against Loki, when they heard them say something that caused Diana to interrupt.

"You actually managed to not only lift, but even wield Thor's hammer," the exiled princess gaped in awe, while everyone else just locked slack-jawed expressions on Ulrich.

"Yep," Ulrich smirked proudly. "It actually came as a surprise to all of us too, and I didn't even realize I was using Mjolnir until after I had grabbed it and then blasted Loki with a bolt of lightning."

"And it didn't just give Ulrich Thor's powers, but it also augmented some of his," Aelita added. "When he used his super sprint, he actually turned into a burst of lightning. He had the advantage over Loki for a bit, but then Loki got in a few hits of his own, revealing that he could hurt both of us while we were using our suits in the process." The pinkette's expression turned a little more sour at that last part, along with her adoptive brother's but they quickly shook it off as Aelita continued, "After seeing Ulrich go down, I just charged him, fists charged with energy, but Loki managed to knock me back as well, and if Iron Man had not shown up in a new suit of armor when he did, we all probably would've been dead."

"How exactly would a new suit of armor have helped Iron Man make a difference," Hawkgirl asked.

"Guess Aelita forgot to mention that said suit was made of the same metal as Thor's hammer, so all of his suits attacks and abilities were enhanced by magic lightning," Janet revealed. "Iron Man then took on Loki with Ulrich so that the rest of us could catch our breathes, and while Cap, Hulk, Thor, and I eventually joined them in that fight, Hank, Hawkeye, Black Panther, and Aelita went to deal with the source of Loki's new powers, which was this huge, magic tree."

"Yggdrasil," Aelita clarified.

"Wait, how could Thor have done all that much to help if Ulrich was using his hammer," Flash asked.

"Easy; he and Aelita figured that since I was using his hammer, it was only fair that he use my sabers," Ulrich shrugged.

"Wait a moment. You said that Yggdrasil was the source of Loki's power, right," Batman asked. When he received a few nods in response, he easily followed up by asking, "I've read in mythology that Yggdrasil was known to be the Tree of Life that holds all of reality together. Surely some of you knew that, right?"

"Yeah, we did, but the Tree of Life is also the source of the Odin Force, which Loki had stolen from Odin while he was in the Odin Sleep. Thankfully, Hank figured out a way to correct the problem, and after explaining his plan as quickly as he could, he uprooted the tree, and had me focus all of the energy of my creativity powers on the tree's roots, and a new tree, completely purified of Loki's evil influence was easily grew in its place," Aelita explained.

"And I thought we've had some crazy adventures in the few months that we've been a team," Superman chuckled.

The Man of Steel's comment easily drew a round of laughter from everyone who was gathered together, but when the laughter died down, it served to signal the end of story time and the party, and everyone gathered together to wish the Avengers a safe journey home. As the two teams exchanged handshakes with one another, they could not help but be reminded of the words that Felicity had spoken earlier, and they all had to agree with her sentiment. This was indeed the best team-up any of them had ever been a part of to date. Still, that did little to relieve Steve of how weird it felt to be exchanging a handshake with his doppelganger, and everyone else had to agree that seeing two Captain Americas in the same room like this was pretty weird, but it was also pretty exciting at the same time as well. With everything now said and done, Vibe opened a breach back to the Avengers' world, and with one final farewell, the mightiest heroes of another Earth departed for their home, leaving everything on this Earth in the hands of the Justice League, the greatest heroes of this Earth.

A few hours later, the Leaguers who had first teamed up with the Avengers were regaling Superman and Batman with tales of the adventure they had on the other team's world. Of course, Flash was doing most of the talking, and tended to over exaggerate a detail or two, but the story was still very amazing all the same in the eyes of Superman and Batman. As his friend continued to talk, Steve moved off to the side to really think over everything that had happened today, a fact that did not go unnoticed by one League member in particular. "You okay," Diana asked once she was standing next to him.

Steve just silently nodded before saying, "Just letting it really sink in. It's still pretty hard to believe that we actually teamed up with another me, even if he was from another world."

"I can only guess how you feel, seeing as I'm not sure how I would feel about fighting alongside my own doppelganger. Still, I'm sure the feeling of fighting with two Captain Americas won't be leaving any of us for a while," Diana admitted. She then smiled a little as she added, "It's almost a shame that they couldn't stay forever. I doubt criminals would be able to survive very long with two Captain Americas out there."

"Maybe, but that would also mean they would have to contend to with two Hulks as well. Just think of the property damage that could cause," Steve joked in reply, and the two were both soon laughing at said remark. After a moment though, Steve's face became a little more pensive as he added, "Still, there was actually something about Rogers that felt…off. I can't really say why, but it just did."

"Well, like you told Aelita before we left their world, if anyone can resolve it, it's her and her brother," Diana reassured him. Upon receiving a questioning look that clearly asked what made her say that, Diana replied, "After hearing all of those stories and learning a little more about them, I just feel like they can make a real difference in their world. One that could really impact everything for everyone on their Earth."

Steve smiled in appreciation for that, and then just gazed up at the stars along with Diana, listening to Flash and the others continue telling Superman and Batman about the adventure that they had alongside the Avengers, content with the feeling that things seemed like they would work out for the better. This feeling was so prominent that Steve did not entirely register the fact that his arm soon found its way around Diana's shoulders, or when Diana had started resting her head on his shoulder, but neither of them felt like breaking this comfortable position. After all, they had both had a very long day, and right now, they were just content with taking a chance to relax during this small, peaceful moment.

* * *

 ** _AN: Okay, so I think you can all see what GL was talking about now, right? You know how I mentioned last chapter that the previous chapter would be the end of the Justice Marvel & Code Avengers crossover? Yeah...That turned out to not be entirely accurate. To be fair though, I wasn't initially planning for it to carry over into this chapter, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like this could be a pretty cool chance to give the League one more chance to team-up with the Avengers from said universe one more time, and that said Avengers would be able to give the League a huge helping hand/advantage over Kang when the fighting really starts, because really, just the small bits of knowledge that the Leaguers who teamed-up with the Avengers the first time was not really going to be that much help in the long run._**

 ** _Diana: Still, it looks like the Avengers' line-up has changed since we last met them._**

 ** _AN: Yes well, the reason for that is something that you could see the full details of in Code Avengers Cosmic. If you want my reasoning for why Wasp is now leader of the team, you can check that out in the ending author's note of the chapter in which she was elected as such. Oh, and real quick, for those of you wondering about Scarlet Witch's appearance, just think of her appearance from the MCU, and you've got her official Code Avengers look for when she's with the Avengers._**

 ** _Captain America: And let's not forget the fact that you ended up having me meet the Skrull-Captain America did happen after all._**

 ** _AN: Yeah, that was also something that was not in the original plan, but after really thinking about it, I figured it would be an interesting thing to do. I was originally not going to do it, because I didn't want to write about two different versions of the same hero teaming up to save the world, but then I figured that it wouldn't be too bad in this case so long as I worked out a way to make sure that I could clarify who was who. That, and I really wanted to write in a moment where Cisco says "Doppelganger" like he does in The Flash._**

 ** _Moving on, let's look at the special guest/cameo appearances that happened this chapter, along with some details that were cleared up in case there was any confusion after last chapter. Yes, Tony Stark is still Iron Man, as proven when Team Iron Man appeared, and they alluded to the fact that Hawkeye does exist in this timeline, but whether or not he's active has not been confirmed nor denied, and I doubt I need to tell you guys about who the "redhead chick" is. We got confirmation of Daredevil, Punisher, Luke Cage/Power Man, and Iron Fist all existing here, along with an appearance by Jessica Jones alias Jewel while also seeing some more Spider-Man &Batgirl interactions. Oh, and let's not forget about the appearance of Team Arrow!_**

 ** _Speaking of which, no Thea is not Speedy yet. That actually won't be happening until much later on down the line, and yes, Roy Harper is Speedy for now. Plus, we also saw Diggle is currently Spartan, because seriously, the dude just so cool! And we got to see Felicity as well! Cause come on, who doesn't love Felicity, right? And yes, Team Arrow has met Spider-Man in the past at some point before they met Barry, both when he was just Barry Allen and when he was the Flash. You can just imagine how that meeting went, right?_**

 ** _As for the STAR Labs facility that Supes and Bats were using, just think of the one that Flash and the other CW-verse heroes used during the four-part crossover event, and you'll know what it is. Plus, we also saw Caitlin again, and Cisco sporting his official Vibe suit from The Flash as well. And rounding out the cameos is a mention of this timeline's Vixen, Wasp, and Ant-Man._**

 ** _Spider-Man: Not to mention you also referenced a few other things from the Code Avengers Series, including some stuff from the final chapter of that story._**

 ** _AN: Well what can I say. Stuff that happened in that chapter was just so awesome, in my humble opinion, that it needed to be mentioned._**

 ** _Superman: Mind telling me where that whole "Justice League into action" bit came from?_**

 ** _AN: Oh that. Well, I do still think that the League needs a battle cry, and that was something I once heard in a little animated movie, so it was either that or go with something else that was probably official. I would come up with my own idea, but I've been trying to come up with my own idea for a Justice League battle cry for years and have yet to succeed in finding one that either works or is just good. Plus, it was either that or "Justice League, action!" Which was used in the new animated short series Justice League Action, and that just sounded...well, into action sounds better to me._**

 ** _Now, this time, I really mean it when I say that the Justice Marvel and Code Avengers crossover special is over, because next chapter sees us returning to the main story of the Justice League series. Take a look at what I mean by moving Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _The League finds itself caught up in a struggle as old as the Arthurian legends when Batman reunites with his old friend Jason Blood for a particularly strange case. Morgaine le Fey is hunting the philosopher's stone, and both Jason and his demonic half, Etrigan will need all the help they can get if they want to keep the witch from retrieving the relic. But when J'onn suddenly finds himself tempted by something that le Fey can give him, things become much more complicated. The battles of Camelot resume in the modern age, next time in…_** **Chapter 14: A Knight of Shadows** ** _._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


	15. A Knight of Shadows

_**AN: Phew! Okay, yeah, I know it's been close to year since this was last updated, but things got a little busy, and even the stories I had been focusing on the most only got like one update a month, if they were lucky. Besides, you could think of this previous hiatus being something close to a mid-season finale for the story or something, if you'd like, but then again, considering we're so close to what would count as the conclusion of said season (that does not mean that it's the end of the story, mind you, more like just reaching the half-way point, or something close to it at least)...Yeah, you know what? Never mind. Just take it however you want.**_

 _ **Captain America: Be careful in what you wish for, lyokoMARVELanime. Some people might not be too kind in their response to that.**_

 _ **AN: Yeah, I know, I know. But again, I've had my mind's focus on some of my other projects a bit more than usual, especially when it comes to anything that has a bit of a relation to Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, or something like one of those. Anyways, let's not keep everyone waiting any longer.**_

 _ **Flash: Before that, I think we should answer a review or two. Some of these are just begging for that, especially since some of them were not answered and have been posted for a few chapters now.**_

 _ **AN: Hm, good point. All right, where should we start?**_

 _ **Diana: Perhaps one of the reviews from "Sailor Dragonball 87"?**_

 _ **AN: Well I could do those one at a time, or I could answer them all at once, and let me go ahead and say that if my answers sound a little mean or harsh, it's not intentionally. First off, I don't know how far back your Marvel knowledge goes, but Carol Danvers is the**_ **original _Ms Marvel, and the newest/current Captain Marvel, while Kamala Kahn is the current Ms. Marvel, and Carol's successor to said mantle. Aelita and_ Ulrich _met a Wally West Flash at a point between the first and second Code Avengers stories, and you likely won't see the full details on that adventure for quite some time, but they will come to light eventually. Glad to hear that I inspired a future idea for you after reading "Femme Fatale", though. As for the other questions in regards to the characters from Code Avengers, just read chapter 9 of Code Avengers Cosmic, and you'll know the answer to that question, and the chapters that follow after that will explain why the line-up is what it was when they appeared in the previous chapter._**

 ** _Captain America: Yikes. Think you might've gone on a little rant there that might make said reviewer think they made you mad or something?_**

 ** _AN: I'm just answering some questions, I'm not trying to come off as being mean or rude, but I do assure you, I'm not mad about what was said in those reviews. Moving on, to a review from "Dragon Rider 66", in regards to his question about Iron Man's armor. I suppose you could say that the armor is similar in appearance to the Mark II from_ _Iron Man Armored Adventures_ _, but really, you could just say that it's appearance is basically similar to that of any Iron Man armor that you recognize as iconic, in the sense that is still the typical red and gold color scheme we normally see._**

 ** _Green Lantern: Hey, how about this one from "Justus80", about you doing a Spider-Man &Arrowverse crossover?_**

 ** _AN: Right, thanks for bringing that up. I'll be honest, while I do like the idea of doing that at some point in the future, I think I'm going to hold off on starting it for a little while, and I'm probably not going to start anything else new for a while until I've finished a few other currently on-going stories as well. Then again, considering how well I've done with not starting anything new until one of my other projects are finished, I'm not entirely sure how easy it will be to keep that promise._**

 ** _Next is a shout-out to "A-LionGleek", and let me start off by saying that I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter so much. Here's hoping you'll enjoy the future chapters of this story just as equally, or at least close to that. As for your question on Ghost Rider's appearance...well, you'll find out once you read this chapter, and I'll be going into details on my reasonings for why it ended up the way it is in the ending note._**

 ** _To everyone else who reviewed, glad to see you all are enjoying the story so much so far, and are excited for it's next update, said update being this one, as you can plainly see. So, here's hoping I continue to live up to expectations with this newest chapter in the adventures of Justice Marvel. So why am I wasting all of your time by making you read all of this? Get to the main content already and enjoy! We've all been waiting forever for this after all!_**

 _ **I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 14: A Knight of Shadows**

When you can say that crime being afoot is just part of an average night, then you know that you have most likely been living in Gotham City for too long. Either that, or you are either part of Gotham PD, you work with the caped crusader, or you are Batman himself. Tonight's case however was likely to be a much more simple one than usual, seeing as it was merely a break in at a local antique store, which had left the owner near his death, while the perpetrator was left otherwise unknown for the moment. Add in the fact that it appeared like they had not taken anything while leaving many of the items in the shop scattered about the place, along with one chair overturned, and you could see why Batman would be getting involved in the case. After all, when no one else could find an answer to what was going on with a crime, Batman was usually the guy to figure out whatever had been missed.

This time was so far turning out to be no different, as his search of the store soon had his flashlight landing on one open book that was left on the counter. What made this particular book different from the others was that it had clearly just had a page torn out of it. While the contents of the missing page were left unknown to him, he could at least figure out a clue or two about what it contained when he noticed a few words on the other pages. "The philosopher's stone," Batman read in a whisper.

"According to legend, it was a gem from the hilt of Excalibur, and the true source of the sword's fabled power," someone suddenly recited, startling the Dark Knight a little, since he had believed to be the only one in the store at the moment. When he turned to the speaker, he relaxed his guard a little since he easily recognized the man in question as an old friend of his. The man in question had dark red hair with a small white stripe in the center, pale skin, and dark eyebrows and eyes, while his attire was a rather simple combination of a black shirt, brown coat, grey pants, and black shoes. Of course, anyone who knew this man like Batman did knew that this rather unsuspecting outside appearance concealed the man's true, rather demonic nature, which had kept him alive for so many centuries. Even if Batman was a skeptic in regards to most things involving magic, he could not deny that this man's claims of being around during the age of King Arthur may hold some truth after seeing this man's alter ego.

"Hello Jason," Batman greeted. "I'm assuming you're not here to browse."

"I'm a friend of the owner," Jason explained.

"You mean that old man," Batman questioned, referring to the elderly individual that had just been rushed off to Gotham Hospital in an ambulance.

"He's 32 years old," Jason revealed, surprising Batman a little, something that very few people could do. "He's also an expert in Arthurian lore."

Just hearing that immediately explained to Batman why Jason Blood was involved, but only in partial detail. After all, whenever something regarding Arthurian legends came up, at least in this way, Jason Blood was almost never far behind. Still, it did leave a few things unanswered, and Batman did not like questions that were unanswered. "What's this all about?"

"Morgaine Le Faye," Jason replied. "When Camelot fell, Merlin was able to hide the philosopher's stone from her. Now she's returned to track it down again."

"Impossible," Batman quickly dismissed.

"You of all people should know better," Jason reminded the caped crusader just as instantly.

Batman could not argue with that, and he was not going to right now. They were in the midst of something that was far more important right now, and Jason Blood definitely seemed to know more about this than he did at the moment, so he had to take whatever leads he could get his hands on. "Why does she want the gem?"

"With it, she can resurrect Camelot, and place her son Mordred on the throne."

"Okay…How close is she to finding this philosopher's stone," Batman asked, not quite buying it entirely, but still willing to humor the idea for the moment. All the same, he had to hope that Jason's answer was a good one.

Sadly, Jason could give no such answer, but instead said something that made the Dark Knight very worried. "Too close."

That was all that Batman needed to hear to let Jason lead him to where the philosopher's stone was currently resting, hopefully before Le Fay got there first. Their trip did mean that they would have to go out of Gotham, but Batman had long since stopped caring about things like that when it came to a case he was working on. To be honest, the only thing about all of this that he was not fond of was the fact that magic was most likely going to be involved. Now do not misunderstand, he had no real problem with magic, per say, but he did prefer it when his cases remained in the realm of normal science and such. It was one thing to deal with aliens, soldiers that had been frozen in ice for a long period of time, and even an Amazon, but magic just threw everything that he knew and felt the most comfortable with out the window. That still did not stop him from learning everything that he could about the field, especially after meeting Jason Blood, Giovanni Zatara, and even Doctor Strange that one time he would rather not talk about. He was just glad that the place they were going was still in this dimension and was not some old building that served as a focal point of magic powers, or at least he hoped that the place was not.

The place they ended up going to was an old castle that had been discovered and explored by archeologists some time ago, and was now doing time as a museum, and from the looks of the damaged and destroyed suits of armor, anyone could tell you that someone had been here for a reason beyond just seeing the sights. Jason paid the destroyed armors little mind though as he lead Batman to where he said that the philosopher's stone was hidden away, but somehow the Dark Knight had a strong feeling that they were not going to find this relic there. Once again, Batman found himself hating it when he was right, because the minute they reached the crypt where the stone was supposed to be, they found nothing inside. Jason was not giving up so easily though, as he instantly reached in and started moving his hand along the surface of the casket's insides, until his hand paused and glowed a little in one particular spot, revealing that which Jason was not hoping to discover, and a bit of what he did want to find.

"She's been here…But she doesn't have the stone, yet," Jason informed the Dark Knight.

"How can you be sure," Batman questioned.

He got his answer when the doors suddenly slammed shut behind them on their own, and a number of swords axes suddenly lifted up into the air with a faint, eerie green glow before rocketing straight towards them. Reacting just as quickly as someone with all of his training would be expected to, Batman immediately shoved Jason aside and then leapt out of the way just minutes before the various weapons had impacted the floor where they had been previously standing. After rolling to his feet again, Batman immediately drew a sword from a nearby suit of armor, ready to defend both himself and his friend from the enchanted weapons, while quickly ordering Jason to try and get the door open.

Jason did not need Batman to tell him anything though, because he was already racing towards the door by the time Batman had drawn the sword, and he could soon hear the Dark Knight clashing his borrowed sword against the enchanted blades that were coming down around him. The only problem was, when he reached the door, Jason found it unmovable, no matter how much he pushed or pulled. "It's sealed shut," Jason shouted to Batman after trying to ram it open with his shoulder.

This was not the news that Batman wanted to hear, and his problems only increased when his fight upgraded from enchanted weapons to living armors. The only upside was that fighting the suits of armor was a bit closer to what Batman was used to dealing with, and he did not need to worry about holding back since the suits were not living beings. It became a little harder though when one of the suits managed to disarm him of his borrowed sword, but Batman did not wear a utility belt full of gadgets just to make a fashion statement, as he quickly proved when he managed to tie the offending suit up with one of his grapples. Turning to his friend, Batman saw that Jason was quickly getting cornered despite his best efforts, and he immediately jumped the closest suit that was threatening the seemingly normal man. He then leapt up to avoid being cleaved in half by another suit's battle axe, and then grabbed the axe-wielder by its helmet so he could throw it into another pair of advancing suits. It did not make the suits slow down though, and seeing one suit pull an axe out of its chest after Jason had thrown it towards the advancing armors did not bode well for them.

"There are too many of them," Jason shouted, but Batman did not seem to really listen as he just started slicing and dicing as many as he could after retrieving another sword. His slashing and slicing soon came to an end though when his sword got caught in one of the armors, allowing said armor to clock Batman in the head, sending the Dark Knight into one of the pillars, and telling Jason that it was time for him to stop holding back. "Gone, gone the form of man. Arise the demon, Etrigan!"

The moment Jason had finished that chant, his body was quickly engulfed in flames while transforming into his demonic alter ego, Etrigan the Demon, who was clad in a red tunic with a long purple cape, black belt, and red shoes. The minute that Etrigan had fully manifested into the battle, he made quick work of a pair of armors before turning several others into ash with a blaze of flames. The last armor only got the chance to attempt one last, failed strike on Batman before it too was turned to ash by Etrigan's demonic inferno, much to Batman's relief. He had already had a haircut earlier this week, and had no desire to get anymore off the top than he previously had.

Still, Batman did have a slight issue that needed to be made known. "Etrigan, you could've warned me," the caped crusader informed his demonic ally as said demon moved to stand over the ashes of his previously felled opponent.

Etrigan did not seem to pay Batman any mind, as he merely scooped up some of the ashes before clenching his fist around them, and snarling, "That witch will pay for this. I'll feast on her cold heart."

Batman could not help but note how Etrigan was not speaking in rhyme just now like he was usually known to do, so he had to assume that this was extremely serious, very personal for Etrigan, or even both. Still, he could see one small problem with this. "If the stone's as powerful as you say, we're going to need help."

* * *

"Aliens and Amazons are one thing. Speedsters and space cops, I can handle that too. Even the whole thing with parallel dimensions, and I'll admit that there were a couple of times where I may have had a close encounter with some magic in the war, but something like this…Something that comes out of the legends of King Arthur…Yeah, that is definitely a new one for me, and is certainly something that I can put on my list of things that have surprised me since I woke up," Captain America admitted once he had heard the story from Batman and Etrigan. The captain had been on monitor duty with J'onn when they got the call from their friend from Gotham, and after collecting Flash and Diana, both of whom were the only other Leaguers available, they had quickly flown over to the castle where Batman and Etrigan had just had their little fight against the enchanted suits of armor. Still, the story was very incredible, even for Steve, while the others just seemed to take it in stride. He figured it had to be because they had all been dealing with what could be considered impossible or incredible for so long, but he put it aside for later, because right now, their current situation was more important.

"And you say you've been trailing Le Fay for centuries," Diana asked Etrigan.

"In an unending game of Cat-And-Mouse," Etrigan confirmed. "For the past generation she has hidden from me, but I'll never rest until her soul burns in the eternal pit."

Everyone was silent at that promise for a moment until Flash finally muttered to Cap and J'onn, "And I thought Bats was creepy." Apparently, Etrigan did not like that comment, because he was growling in Flash's face soon after, making the Scarlet Speedster a little nervous when he did. "Sorry."

"How has she alluded you for so long," Batman asked, trying to keep the conversation on track.

"The witch has an amulet which can sense when I'm drawing near," Etrigan replied.

"With that stench, who needs an amulet," Flash whispered.

Etrigan must have heard that as well, because he was soon grabbing Flash by the front of his suit and lifting the speedster up into the air above him as he glared at Barry menacingly. "What," Etrigan snarled.

"Nothing," Flash immediately said.

"Hey, put him down. We're all on the same side here, remember," Captain America ordered, his hand already going for his shield as he leveled his own glare at Etrigan. The demon just glared back at Steve for a few minutes before tossing Flash back down onto the ground, prompting Steve to move onto his next point. "Is there any other way you can track her, or at least get an idea of where she is?"

"I have tried everything that I know, but her amulet allows her to sense when I am attempting to do so. She is also very familiar with my magics, so she knows how to avoid me with just the right tricks," Etrigan replied, apparently feeling that it was okay to slip into his usual pattern of speaking once again for a moment.

"Perhaps you should consider another approach," J'onn suggested.

"What do you suggest?"

"I could try locate her telepathically," J'onn revealed, and he immediately narrowed his eyes in concentration before they began to glow, showing that he was working his telepathic magic even as they spoke.

"Can he really do that," Steve asked Diana.

"He's been able to before, so there shouldn't be any reason to doubt him now," Diana replied, but all the same, she still had an ill feeling forming in the pit of her stomach about this idea.

* * *

Even as the heroes were speaking, Morgaine Le Fay was in her current hideaway in London grumbling about her failure to secure the philosopher's stone from where it had been said to have been secreted away to, at least according to the books in that shop she and her son had…visited. By all accounts, both magical and otherwise, the blasted thing should have been there, but unfortunately, it turned out that Merlin's Ark was as empty as a dried up goblet. It seemed clear that Merlin was still attempting to be just as crafty as he had always been, and as usual, it was proving to frustrate Morgaine Le Fay to no end. "Where? Where could Merlin have hidden that infernal stone," Le Fay practically growled.

"Maybe he didn't," her son, Mordred offered as he continued to entertain a small black cat that had found its way inside with a rat he had managed to capture for entertainment. "What if the archeologists who found that castle helped themselves to it? I know I would have."

"Of course," Morgaine exclaimed, instantly proud of her son's cleverness. "Why didn't I…"

Mordred was not as concerned by his mother's sudden pause as he was by the gasp of shock that she released when she did, because that was what made him cease his little game with the cat and rat. "Mother?"

"Someone is reaching out to mind attempting to find me," Morgaine revealed.

"Is it…him," Mordred asked, already suspecting their old foe Jason Blood. They had already had to leave the castle before having a chance to search it more thoroughly because the cursed knight was closing in on them, so it would stand to reason that he would be making another attempt now.

"No. A mere amateur. He has no idea who he's dealing with," Le Fay scoffed in amusement, and a moment later, she was conjuring a spell to counteract this telepath, along with something else that would no doubt earn her a new pawn in this little game she and Jason Blood had been playing for so long. Just thinking of what would likely come from this almost made Morgaine grin in excitement behind her gold mask. After all, mortals were so easily swayed.

* * *

Everyone had just been standing in silence as they watched J'onn scan for Morgaine Le Fay, but they were still unprepared for when the Martian suddenly cried out in pain and then collapsed on the ground. In an instant, they were all right next to him and trying to rouse him, but for some reason, J'onn just would not wake up. They did not need Etrigan to tell them that Le Fay had likely done something to Martian Manhunter after somehow realizing he was trying to locate her, but all the same, they did not let that stop them from rushing J'onn onto the Javelin so that they could try and give him some form of medical aid if any. The only problem there was that even if it was something that was easily dealt with, providing any medical treatment to J'onn was hard given how little they really knew about Martian physiology, but as it turned out, they did not need to know that much in this case.

Since he had been chasing after Morgaine for so long, Etrigan knew a few counter spells that could likely reverse whatever had happened to J'onn, and no one was willing to just leave the Martian alone and hope for the best. With that made clear, Etrigan put some of his magic to work, and entered J'onn's mind in order to reverse whatever it was that the sorceress had done. From an outside perspective, it did not seem like anything was happening at first, but a moment later, J'onn suddenly became very restless, like he was in the midst of a nightmare or something, until finally, his eyes snapped open and he woke with a start, bringing relief to all of his teammates.

"Welcome back. We thought we lost you, buddy," Flash told his friend, but it did not seem like his words were of any help, because J'onn just glanced out the window for a moment with a downcast expression.

"Then…it was all an illusion," J'onn muttered to himself before he stood up and moved to the front of the cockpit, earning concerned glances from the others.

"Perceptive, isn't he," Etrigan growled, either unable to read the room, or just not caring enough to bother.

"Lay off, gruesome," Flash snapped in response, no longer caring what the demon could do to him in retaliation if he pissed Etrigan off.

Diana on the other hand was much more concerned with her teammate's wellbeing, and was quickly by his side with a hand on his shoulder. "J'onn, are you all right," the princess asked.

J'onn said nothing for a moment, until he finally turned to the others and said, "Yes of course. I'll be fine."

While everyone else had bought the little white lie, Etrigan was able to see right through it, due to the fact that he was well aware of what kind of effect Le Fay could have on a person if she got her claws on them. He was not the only one though, because Captain America could see through the brave front that Martian Manhunter was putting up as well. He knew because it was similar to one he would put up after a mission had gone bad and he needed to keep the morale of his troops up. Cap would have confronted J'onn on it right then and there, but now was not the best time to do so, and they had much bigger concerns to deal with, a fact that Batman proved when he jumped right into business once again.

"Did you locate Le Fay," Batman questioned.

"No, but I did sense she doesn't have the stone yet," J'onn confirmed.

"Thank Hera for that," Diana sighed in relief.

"You said it," Steve agreed.

"Before she lashed out at me, I heard the words 'archeologists' and 'castle,'" J'onn then informed them, hoping that it would be something that they could build off of.

"It's a start," Batman confirmed for him, and he immediately took over the pilot's seat as a silent signal that they were going to be heading out. As the others strapped in, Batman quickly explained to them, "Le Fay is probably going off the idea that one of the archeologists who had excavated Castle Branek found and took the stone for themselves."

Flash was immediately over to the nearest computer to run a search for said archeologists, and in matter of minutes, he had pulled up all the information that one could find on the castle that they had just been standing outside of. "Let's see…Castle Branek…Excavated shortly after World War II…Only two surviving team members," Flash recited for everyone. "Henry Moss and Harv Hickman."

"We'll need to split up and confront them both. If anyone knows about the stone's current location, it will likely be them. Or at least that's what Le Fay believes," Batman ordered. "I'll take Etrigan and J'onn with me to speak with Henry Moss."

"Which means Diana, Flash, and I will take Harv Hickman," Captain America picked up from there.

Batman just nodded in response as the Javelin lifted off and took off in the direction of their next destination, or at least a halfway point where they could drop off whoever was not going to be joining Batman's group. Seeing as it would be a couple of hours before they arrived there though, Cap decided that now was as good a time as any to confront J'onn about what Le Fay had done to him earlier. He did not do so right away though, but gave it a couple of minutes before he moved to a seat closer to J'onn so that they could keep the conversation between the two of them as best as they could at the moment.

"You sure you're okay, J'onn? You seem a little…off," Steve questioned his friend.

"I assure you, Captain, I am fine," J'onn tried to insist.

"Come on, soldier. I know when someone's trying to put up a strong front for the sake of others. What exactly happened to you while you were out?"

Seeing as the captain was not going to let up on his questioning, J'onn had to let out a silent sigh of defeat before he launched into his explanation of what had happened. "When I first awoke, I saw Mars, but not as it is now. Everything was the same as it had been before the invaders had come, and then my wife, My'ria'h appeared."

"I didn't know you were married," Steve admitted.

"There was no reason you should have. It is not something I had ever mentioned before, even to the others," J'onn pointed out. After getting a shrug of consensus in reply from the super soldier, J'onn continued, "She then lead me into our home, and everything there was also just as I remembered it. Not just in appearance, but in feeling as well, and then my children appeared before me. I actually held my dear little ones in my arms, and I felt so…overjoyed seeing them alive after so long. It was at that moment when Etrigan appeared and began trying to bring me out of the illusion."

"I'm guessing that you weren't entirely willing to let it go, given how you seemed to get a little restless near the end," Steve quickly figured out. When J'onn said nothing in reply, he took that to mean yes, and immediately said, "I may not know exactly what it's like to lose what you have, J'onn, but I do understand how hard it must be to try and live with that loss, and how you would do whatever you could to get it back if given the chance. Just remember that there are some prices that are too high to pay, especially considering what it seems like the price would have been in this case."

J'onn still said nothing in reply, but did give the captain a small smile of thanks before turning his attention forward again and resuming his usual stoic expression. What neither of them knew though, was that Etrigan had overheard a great deal of the conversation, and had an opinion of his own on how they should react to Le Fay's attack on J'onn. "Don't trust the Martian," the demon informed Batman. "He's been tainted by that witch."

"Let us worry about that," Batman told his old acquaintance in a short tone. He was not too fond of people questioning the trustworthiness of his allies, even if the ones doing the questioning were some of those same allies.

"Heed me," Etrigan implored, getting a small amount of Batman's attention. He had not known Etrigan to sound so desperate in his attempts to be heard, but then again, this situation was clearly delicate where the demon was concerned. "She will tap into your deepest desires, and dangle them like a carrot in front of your nose. She will give you everything you dream of, but only until she gets what she wants."

While that word of caution would likely have been easily brushed off, given that he did in fact have faith in his teammates, Batman could not help but note that there was something in Etrigan's tone that clearly said this was not just simple words of caution. "The voice of experience?"

Etrigan just crossed his arms with a growl and settled for glaring at J'onn before he said, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

If it were not for his rigid self-control, Batman probably would have rolled his eyes at that statement. Then again, he probably would have been a hypocrite if he did, considering how often he had uttered those exact same words to others more times than he cares to count. Still, considering how J'onn had reacted after coming out of the illusion, and given Etrigan's history with Morgaine Le Fay, he would silently admit that it would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on Martian Manhunter, both for J'onn's sake, and everyone else's as well.

* * *

The minute they touched down outside the mansion of their target, the first thing that Flash, Wonder Woman, and Captain America saw was a long line right outside the door, and all the people in said line were dressed in some form of costume. Seeing all of this instantly clued Flash into something he felt that he should have realized before, and he had to give himself a mental slap for not noticing it sooner. "Harv Hickman! The magazine publisher," the speedster proclaimed in disbelief after he and Cap had relinquished their hold around the Amazon, since she had to carry them both from the Javelin all the way here.

"Do you know his work," Diana inquired, not knowing just what kind of magazines the man published.

She and Steve both started to get something of a clue when Flash jumped a little and nervously said, "Uh, No! I mean…Only by reputation." Both of the other two heroes kept looks of disbelief, Cap more so than Diana since he now had a hunch as to what kind of magazines Hickman published. Working for Tony Stark meant he had caught a glimpse or two of said publications from time to time. Since neither of his friends were losing their looks, Flash hastily added, "Any that I've ever actually seen in person are Vibe's, I swear! I only looked at them for the articles."

"Right," Steve muttered, not quite believing it, but still at least willing to not question Flash on it too much for the moment. "Any idea what this is all about though?"

"Probably his annual Halloween party," Flash guessed.

"Well, we'd best find Mister Hickman quickly and retrieve the stone, before any of his guests are put in harm's way," Diana suggested, and she immediately lead the three through the crowd and up to the door.

They received a few complaints, along with a few shouts of "no cutting" from the guests, which were all answered by Cap and Flash giving hasty apologies and saying that they were on official business, and they only stopped when they were standing before the bouncer at the door. "Are you on the list," the man questioned the three.

"No, but this is an emergency situation. Your boss may be in danger along with the rest of the world," Captain America informed him.

"Right. Since when is that not the case," the guard scoffed.

"Sir, please. We are with the Justice League," Diana informed him.

Yeah, sure lady. So are they," the guard chuckled, indicating someone behind the three. When the trio turned around, they immediately spotted a pair of guys dressed in rather cheap-looking Superman and Batman costumes, yet still clearly not the genuine article. Looking further down the line also allowed them to spot someone in a Captain America costume that reminded Steve of the outfit he wore when he was just being used to help sell war bonds in the Forties, much to his annoyance, as well as other folks who were dressed in a Spider-Man costume, an Iron Man suit that looked to be made out of cardboard boxes, and guy dressed in an orange and green number who was apparently supposed to be Aquaman.

"Right. That's _really_ convincing," Flash drawled in disbelief, feeling a little stupid right now for not thinking about that before. After all, this was a Halloween party, so why would there not be someone dressed up as a superhero or two.

"Now go crash someone else's party," the guard then said before reaching out and grabbing Wonder Woman's shoulder, earning him a distasteful glare from the princess as a result.

"Ooh, bad idea, pal," Captain America muttered before he started backing away a little, both to give Diana some space, and so he could enjoy the show.

A second later, Diana had grabbed the man by the front of his suit, lifted him over her head, and tossed him clear across the yard where he landed in some bushes. While many folks in the crowd had started cheering at the show they were just treated to, and Flash and Steve smirked in amusement, the guard was far less than enthused, and had immediately called for backup. Cap immediately moved his shield onto his arm, while Flash and Wonder Woman dropped into battle stances, each ready for a fight, until someone shouted for the guards to wait a moment, making everyone freeze in place.

A moment later, the guards parted to allow a short, older man with hair that had been slicked back in a fancy robe stepped out with a small grin on his face and approached the three. Or to be more accurate, he started eyeing Diana, circling her like a predator studying its next catch, and all in a way that made Steve's blood boil a little bit while Flash just felt a little disgusted. While Diana had been out in man's world long enough to recognize the signs of what this man was clearly thinking right at the moment, she was still a little thrown off by the fact that this person was doing so to her. Sure, the others had explained that her sense of style was not really all that common outside of hero work, but she was still not quite at the point where she really understood the full reason as to why, and that was without remembering the fact that she seemed to captivate many men while she was dressed in civilian attire. Though she would not deny that she got a bit of a small thrill from seeing the look that Cap was throwing the old man at the moment.

Captain America quickly shook off his emotional response to the man's actions though, schooled his features, and asked as evenly as he could, "Mister Hickman, I presume?"

"Yes indeed, sir," Hickman said with a small wave, his eyes never leaving Diana even once. After another moment though, he then asked, "How could I deny such a goddess?" The next thing any of them knew, he was giving Diana's hand a quick kiss, and pulling her along as he beckoned, "Come in. Come in."

Diana could not really do anything other than let the man pull her along, having been somewhat surprised by his actions. When the guards tried to push the other two heroes back, Flash immediately sped both himself and Cap past them with a little show of super speed, and smirked back at them as he said, "We're with her."

With that, Flash rushed them on inside until they were just a few paces behind Diana and Hickman, just out of earshot. When he came to stop, he finally gave Cap a quick glance, and when he saw that Cap's face had fallen into the same, irritated look he had before when Hickman first came out, and that said look was firmly fixed on the man hosting this party, no doubt due to the fact he was still leading Diana along by the hand, Flash could not stop himself from letting a quick laugh. "What's funny," Steve asked, having been snapped out of the trance by the sound of Barry's laughter.

"Oh, nothing. Just seeing the way you're looking at Diana as she's being lead along by her new rich, older admirer," Flash informed him, even though he did throw up in his mouth a little at that last part. He quickly got over though, and his smile returned in full as he finished, "Actually, I have to admit, I didn't know your face muscles could make that look."

"What? There's…There's no look," Steve tried to insist while attempting to school his features again. Needless to say, all attempts had failed, which only provoked more teasing from the speedster.

"Jealousy, thy name is Rogers," Barry declared in a semi-dramatic tone.

Steve just leveled his friend with a small glare after that before he smirked a little and asked, "By the way, how's Iris doing lately?"

Hearing Cap mention his girlfriend by name, quickly silenced Barry, partly because he knew that if the wrong person overheard them here, they would quickly put together who the Flash was behind his mask, and they carried on from there in silence. All the same, Steve still caught how the visible part of Barry's face had become almost as red as his suit just now, and his smirk grew a little more in response to that. He made a quick note to question Barry on the matter a little more later when secret identities were not at risk, and then started to take in their new surroundings, planning out a few different attack angles and strategies in his head in case Le Fay showed up before they could confirm whether or not the philosopher's stone was in Hickman's possession.

The only things that the captain noted though were things that drew even more distaste into his expression. Several rooms were filled with people dancing the night away to music that Steve would consider to be more akin to random loud noises jumbled together, all underneath disco lights. In the rooms that were not running such entertainment were full bars were people were drinking to their heart's content and going completely insane as a result of drinking too much. Not to mention a room filled with various video games that Steve could not be bothered to remember the name of, and all throughout the building, there were pieces of art that were just sitting along the walls with no real rhyme or pattern, no doubt set up that way with the idea that they would look good in that location, or even just because their owner did not really care too much about where they were placed. In short, Steve's opinion of Hickman was getting lower and lower by the minute, because he seemed to be the stereotypical rich-boy who practically had the world at his fingertips and still did not think it was enough. Their host did not even appear to be ashamed of it as he boasted of his status and wealth to them. Mostly to Diana, but Steve and Flash were both still there to hear about it.

"Home theater, complete gym, game room," Hickman boasted just as they were coming to a stop before a marble statue that he thought would grab their attention. "And this is one of my most prized possessions. A genuine Greek…"

"Roman," Diana corrected, surprising Hickman a little.

"Excuse me?"

"This statue is a Roman copy," Diana explained, having already studied it with a critical eye the moment it came within her line of sight.

Hickman just looked between the raven haired beauty and the statue for a minute before he finally asked, "How do you know that?"

"Trust her on this one," Flash insisted for the princess.

"She's a very big expert when it comes to Greek/Roman Mythology and Arts," Steve finished for the speedster, though mostly because he was not entirely sure that he wanted know how Flash was going to if left on his own.

Hickman eyed the three for a minute before he finally just shrugged the moment off, clearly not caring about that little detail at all before he resumed his little tour. When they walked past a large Jacuzzi full of several sexy women in bikinis, Cap decided that he had finally had enough. "All right, clearly we're not going to get anywhere fast with him, so we'll just need to search the premises ourselves. Flash, run a sweep of the building, and while you're at it, make sure to keep an eye out for Le Fay. We'll need to be ready for if or when she comes here. I'll see what I can find on my own."

"What about me," Diana asked.

"See if you can squeeze a few answers out of Hickman. He does seem like he's pretty fixated on you, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to do so if you just bat your eyes and give him a little smile," Flash offered before Steve could say anything.

As much as Captain America wanted to argue with that plan, he had to admit that it did seem to be the only thing that Diana could do right now, given that Hickman was clearly watching her like a hawk. That did not mean he had to like it though, but a small glance from Diana was all it took for the princess to reassure him that she could handle things, even if he did notice a bit of hesitance in her expression despite that. Still, they were on a tight schedule, and could not afford to waste too much time, so they settled with that plan and set to work at once.

* * *

Cap's search proved unfruitful, as the only thing he found throughout Hickman's mansion were partygoers and what he could only describe as overpriced useless junk that was likely just bought because Hickman could buy them. At one point, he had even started to think that Hickman did not have the stone, until J'onn called to inform him that Moss did not have it, and that Morgaine had already paid him a visit before fleeing from the trap that he, Etrigan, and Batman had set for her and her son. When he heard about that last part, Steve could not help but notice that there was a tinge of regret in J'onn's voice, indicating that something had happened to Martian Manhunter when they had sprung the trap, but he figured it would be better to question his teammate on it later, because that served as the confirmation they needed to know that Hickman did in fact have the philosopher's stone somewhere. It also confirmed that Le Fay was going to be coming here soon, so they had even less time to find that rock than they did before. Steve just had to hope that Flash would see the witch coming before she got in the building.

Sadly, his hopes seemed to be quickly dashed when he heard a loud boom from somewhere nearby, and he immediately sprinted off in the direction of the explosion. Upon his arrival, Steve found that something had barreled into the Jacuzzi from the next room, and it had taken Diana along with it. Flash was instantly right next to Cap as they came up to the princess, with the former telling the women who were still in the Jacuzzi to get out as quickly as possible, and they had to breathe small sighs of relief when they saw that she was dazed by otherwise unharmed. When they looked up to her attacker, their relief was quickly washed away by shock at the sight of a large worm like monster with no eyes and a large mouth full of sharp teeth roaring down at them before it slithered into the next room, which Steve knew to be one of the rooms where several guests were dancing the night away.

Flash immediately took off after the creature, no doubt hoping to either slow the monster down or pull everyone to safety outside, leaving Captain America to get the story from Diana. "What happened, Diana," Steve questioned.

"Morgaine's here," Diana replied.

"Yeah, I think we figured that out," Steve pointed out, indicating where the worm creature had slithered off to with Flash on its tail. "Anything else we should know though?"

"I have the stone, and that creature is actually Hickman. Morgaine had cast some sort of spell that changed him into that thing," Diana revealed, holding the rather unimpressive stone block for Steve to see when she did.

"…Okay, that did not expect," Captain America admitted before offering a hand to the princess.

Diana happily accepted the assistance in standing up, and the two had both raced through the hole in the wall just in time to see Flash get knocked aside by the transformed Hickman after the speedster had stopped to help someone get out of the room. Reacting on instinct, Captain America immediately threw his shield right into the creature's head, distracting it long enough for Diana to fly up and hit it back as hard as she could. Cap then charged in, and used a couch as a springboard so that he could get within striking distance of the worm monster and deliver a hard punch of his own that knocked the creature into the opposite wall.

"That felt pretty good, actually," Steve admitted with a smirk when he landed on the ground again, before using the electro magnets in one of his suit's arms to call his shield back over to him, while Diana slipped the stone into her belt so she could tie her lasso around Hickman. The rock did not stay there for long, because it soon gained a faint glow, lifted out of her belt, and began to slowly move away from her.

Turning to see where the stone was going, Steve and Diana both saw Morgaine Le Fay herself, in all of her purple robed, golden masked glory waving a hand at the stone as she levitated it towards her, and that was all that Diana needed to see in order to grab hold of the stone in an attempt to keep it from reaching the witch. Despite her very impressive strength though, Diana seemed unable to do anything but slow its advance towards the witch, so it was not long before the edges of the enchanted rock were brushing Le Fay's fingertips. Thankfully, it was right at that moment when someone else intervened and blasted Le Fay away from both her prize and the Amazon with a blaze of hellfire. Diana was immediately propelled backwards, both because of the suddenness of the blast and due to the fact that she had been trying to pull back on the stone so hard, but managed to right herself in the air without any trouble before she glanced towards the person who had jumped in just now. The only downside was that she was not entirely sure whether to smile or not at seeing this new arrival to the battle.

"Fools! Why are you still here," Etrigan demanded, his hands still blazing with hellfire. "You have the stone! Run!"

"I never run from a battle," Diana protested, immediately preparing to charge in again.

Etrigan was not going to listen to any such arguments though. "Get the stone as far away from Le Fay as you can. I'll handle the witch."

"He's right. Etrigan's the only one of us who stands the best chance in a fight against Morgaine Le Fay, and aside from Flash, you're the only one who can get the stone away from her as fast as possible," Steve agreed, hoping that Diana could see the logic he was laying out for her. "I'll help him keep Le Fay busy while you're doing that. Flash, if you're still good to go, we need you to evacuate the rest of the building."

Despite how much she wanted to deny it, Diana knew that Captain America was right. That did not mean she liked it though, and she made that quite clear when she dropped her arms and squared her shoulders while replying, "All right, but work fast. We don't need anyone to be lost here."

"We'll be fine. Now go," Cap ordered, and like that, Diana was gone, with Flash disappearing in a burst of speed soon after, both on their way to carry out their assigned jobs.

"Don't stop for anything," Etrigan shouted as one last declaration of caution for the princess before returning his attention to Le Fay. That did not prevent him from glancing at the captain out of the corner of his eye. "You should have left with the Amazon, little man. You've never faced power like Le Fay's."

"You'd be surprised by the kind of things I've faced in the Forties alone, never mind during my time here in the present," Captain America easily rebuked.

"Humph. Doubtful," Etrigan muttered in response before glaring at the rubble that Le Fay had been buried under.

The witch in question quickly arose from beneath said rubble, looking none the worse for wear, and glowing with an aura of magic as she locked gazes with Etrigan. Somehow, Steve could swear that she was somewhere between scowling and smirking under that strange mask of hers, and he had to figure that it must have been something in voice that clued him in when she spoke to his demonic ally. "Stand aside, beast. You and the soldier both."

"Not a chance. I could do this all day," Captain America promised, his shield poised and ready for action.

"I stood aside for you once. Never again," Etrigan angrily declared before casting another fury of hellfire at the witch.

Morgaine did not let that deter her though, as she simply created a quick shield that dispelled Etrigan's attack and sent it right back at both him and Captain America. Cap was able to stave off most of the attack with his shield, though he did feel a great deal of the heat from the flames, but Etrigan was not so lucky, and took the full brunt of his own blast dead center. "Is that the best you can do, my immortal beloved," Morgaine taunted the demon before blasting Etrigan with another spell.

Etrigan was clearly hurt by the blast, and he knew that another one was going to be coming in a minute, until Cap's shield unexpectedly struck her in the side. When the shield returned to its owner's arm, Captain America was already in midair, lunging right towards Le Fay, and he easily slammed his shield against her person in a quick swing. He then brought his shield in for an uppercut, striking the witch beneath her chin, and giving him an opening to kick her further away. Steve then made to close the distance once more, but Le Fay recovered too quickly for him, and it was all he could do to block her next magic blast with his shield. Despite that, he was still sent flying backwards, right into Etrigan, and both heroes were sent tumbling further across the room, with Etrigan beginning to slip into unconsciousness soon after. Steve on the other hand, ended up merely dazed, but not to the point where he was unable to at least try and deflect another blast of magic with his shield, for what little good it did. The blast ended up knocking the super soldier off of Etrigan and further back, and Steve was barely able to rise up enough in time to see Le Fay approaching the demon while promising to finish him off. He had to quirk his eyebrow a little when he heard her mention that it would be with "more than just a kiss," but put it aside since he figured that it had a large part in the history between these two from the Arthurian age. Right now, he needed to think of something to do in order to save both himself and Etrigan from Morgaine's wrath.

It turned out that he did not actually need to, because an instant later, he and Etrigan had both been scooped up and raced out of the room by Flash, while Morgaine was left screaming in anger by her failure to secure the stone and finish her old foe. Steve could not help but smile at Barry in thanks, which the speedster happily returned, but Etrigan on the other hand had a different opinion on Flash's interference. "What are you doing," the demon demanded.

Barry just rolled his eyes beneath his mask before replying, "You can thank me later."

Etrigan just grumbled in response, making the other two think that was his attempt at saying thanks, but it was ultimately drowned out by the sound of Hickman's house suddenly exploding in a blaze of glory. That served as all the reminder that they needed to know that they still had something left to do before they could say that their job was done, and Flash was soon speeding the three of them off to the Javelin. There was little doubt in the scarlet speedster's mind that Diana had gone there with the stone, and he had a hunch that she had already had the same idea he did on where they could hide the stone away for the moment.

* * *

Everyone was glad that the return to the Watchtower had been uneventful, save for Etrigan's glaring at both the stone and Flash, and the minute the Javelin had landed in the hangar bay of the Justice League's headquarters, the four heroes immediately spotted Batman waiting for them in the door to the next room. When they asked where J'onn was, Batman explained that the Martian was taking some time for himself in order to clear his head after his last encounter with Le Fay. Steve immediately grew concerned when he heard that, and made it a point to question the Dark Knight on his meaning. Batman did not say though, citing that it was not his place to tell them, and then just lead the four to one of the most secure vaults on the station so that they could seal the philosopher's stone inside of it. That did not mean that no one was going to try and question Bats on it again later though.

In short order, the stone was locked inside the vault, and once they had implemented every security measure to make sure that it would stay there, Flash could only smirk and say, "I'd like to see her try to get it now."

"Be careful what you wish for, little man," Etrigan cautioned, and while it was a wise word of warning, the way he said it still got under everyone's skin a little bit.

That was especially true for Flash, because he immediately turned his own glare onto Etrigan, having finally had enough of the demon's crap and said, "Well aren't you a ray of sunshine? As far as I'm concerned, this mission's over. The world's safe again and I for one am going to kick back. So go find some other house to haunt."

No one even had a chance to reprimand Flash for his attitude, because he had immediately stormed off afterwards. Not that many of them had the heart to really do so, since they all shared similar feelings in regards to Etrigan's attitude along with knowing that most of it had been directed at either J'onn or Flash since they met him, but all the same, the speedster was a little out of line. Diana was the only one who really said anything in response to it all, as she quickly told Etrigan, "He didn't mean that."

"Do you think I care," Etrigan asked, and he too then stormed away, not really waiting or expecting an answer.

To be honest, Steve was not sure how much Etrigan did care about, but given that the guy was helping them to keep Le Fay from getting the stone, that had to be a sign of some good in the demon. Now if his attitude was a little better, Steve could probably sympathize with Etrigan a little more, but the demon was trying Steve's limits in a way that had not been done since his days back in the Forties while working with one particular member of the Howling Commandos. Thinking of that soldier made Steve pause for a moment to wonder if old comrade, Wildboy Howlet was still around, given the man's incredible luck when it came to avoiding death, but he put it aside for now. There was still something else he had to deal with at the moment.

Seeing as there was no one else around now, Steve looked to the only founding member of the League who was technically a part-timer, and said, "All right Batman, would you mind telling me what's going on with J'onn, because I get the feeling that it has something to do with why the trap you two and Etrigan had set for Le Fay had failed."

Batman just looked at the captain for a minute before turning and walking towards the ops center of the station so he could take his shift at monitor duty, silently indicating that he was going to explain on the way when he made no protests against Cap following him. "Apparently that illusion he saw was a bit more realistic for him than we thought. He claims that it was incredibly real, and it really showed when we confronted Le Fay. Right when he was about to attack her, he froze and started reaching for something or someone. I didn't find out until after waking up here in the medical bay that it was either his family or his wife."

"Do you think Etrigan is right to say that it isn't safe to trust J'onn at the moment," Steve asked, hating himself for having to do so. He did not like having to be suspicious of his friends, but if there was a chance that they were a risk to either the team or the world, then he had to keep his mind open to the possibilities.

"It could go either way, at the moment. J'onn told me himself that there were times when he felt like he would do anything to have his loved ones back, and Le Fay not only knows that but is as manipulative as Etrigan says, then she may use that to her advantage." Even as he said all of that, Batman had a sour look on his face that was notable even through both his cowl and the otherwise neutral glare he tended to try and keep up. He did not like doubting a teammate anymore than Cap did, especially when you considered what J'onn had done for him, the League, and the world since he had first met him, but he knew very well what that kind of temptation could lead a person to do.

Steve could do nothing more than hum and nod to show he understood what Batman was saying. The two remained silent for some time after that, even after arriving at Ops, where they quickly spotted Etrigan perched off to the side like a gargoyle, while Diana was keeping herself busy by taking inventory of the station's supplies, no doubt in an attempt to try and ignore Etrigan's unsettling gaze. Steve remembered Diana commenting on the flight up that said demon's stare made her feel like Etrigan was glaring right into her soul, so he was not too surprised that she was doing whatever she could in an attempt to ignore it and did not comment on it. After another few moments of silence though, Steve felt that he did have to give voice to one particular thought, and it did seem like now was as good a time as any.

"I know this may sound a little strange, but I actually kind of envy J'onn," Captain America admitted, earning a small look from Batman that clearly demanded more details. "While he did lose his family after what had happened to his world, he at least found someone he wanted to share the rest of his life with, and got time to enjoy that happiness of having a family. I lost both of my parents when I was really young, and I didn't really have time to try and find someone to settle down with while I was fighting the war."

"From what I recall, you did share a strong relationship with Margret Carter," Batman reminded the super soldier. He actually had been listening that one time when Flash and Hawkgirl were talking with him during the first incident with the Injustice Gang. He just did not comment on it at the time because he had been monitoring the news networks for information and for the simple fact that he did not indulge in gossip.

Steve just nodded in thought to that for a moment before he said, "Maybe, but I missed out on that chance after my seventy-year-long nap in the ice. The closest thing I had to family during the Forties was my old partner Bucky, and…well…"

"I know," Batman said, surprising Cap a little. "It's well-documented in history how Sergeant Barnes was the only member of the Howling Commandos to give his life."

"Of course it is," Steve groaned, since he did not like hearing that was how Bucky was remembered. "He was like my brother, and losing him was a lot harder than anything else during those days. Its only because of that little detail that I think I can at least come a little close to understanding how J'onn feels, despite never having what he did. I still can't help but wonder sometimes though if maybe I could have done something different and settled down at some point, you know?"

"…Not entirely," Batman revealed, though part of him did admit that there was a moment or two when he had considered giving up his crusade so he could have a more peaceful and happy life. He just was not willing to reveal that to anyone outside his circle of trust right now.

It was hard to really say whether or not this line of conversation between the two was going to continue, but a moment later it did not matter too much, because everyone was immediately on their toes when the lights in Watchtower all suddenly flickered in a way that was not normal, even by the standards of the League's space station. A moment later, a number of ogres in armor suddenly materialized onto the deck, and Batman and Captain America were soon jumping down in order to help Diana knock them back into the blazes of fire that Etrigan had just thrown out at the rest of the group. Naturally, it proved to not be that easy to defeat these intruders, because the ogres were soon stepping through the flames, most looking none-the-worse for wear. That proved to be all the signal that the team needed to take action and start fighting back, and when you consider that Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America are all well-trained fighters with a large variety of skills and abilities, you could easily see why this fight would be nothing short of impressive, even without Etrigan adding his own strength into the mix.

Despite all of their skills and strengths though, the army of ogres appeared to be unending, and none of the four could keep them back forever, as evidenced when Cap and Diana both found themselves being pinned down by some of the creatures. Luckily, they were saved by a timely intervention from Flash, who had just rushed into the room and quickly figured out at least a small summary of the situation when he saw the monsters that his friends were fighting. After blasting away the creatures that were holding the two patriotic styled heroes down with a burst of his speed, Flash quickly helped Cap to his feet again and asked, "What the heck happened?"

"I'll give you three guesses," Captain America replied before tossing his shield into one of the ogres. When the vibranium disk returned to his hand again, Steve was already rolling along the floor in preparation for a strike against a trio of ogres, and having his shield in hand again made it all the more easier to knock them out, at least for a moment. A quick spin kick, knocked another pair out of the fight, but Steve had to groan a little when he saw at least five more start coming after him in their place, and glancing around the room, he could see that the others were not fairing any better.

Batman seemed to be throwing every fighting style he knew and every gadget in his belt at his attackers, while Diana was barreling through anyone who dared to get too close to her, even going so far as to cut down a few ogres after stealing a sword from one of them, but they were still unable to do much to prevent themselves from getting overrun. When Cap saw this, he immediately made a charge to try and free his friends from the ogres that were holding them down, but doing so ended up leaving him open for being tackled by another trio of ogres from the side. Etrigan quickly caught sight of this as well, and even as he punched, kicked, and burned away any beast that came into his path, he had to let out a very frustrated growl over how the tide was turning against them, though partly because he quickly figured out what this was: a distraction. There was no question that Le Fay was behind this, but what they had not realized right away, or were just too stubborn to admit to, was that these creatures were merely Le Fay's tools for keeping them busy so that she could have her newest pawn retrieve the stone for her. Knowing this, Etrigan quickly started trying to think of a way to end this fight a little more quickly, and the idea soon came to him when he saw that one Leaguer was still keeping ahead of the creatures attacking them, and easily knocking a lot of them out too all through a perfect use of his incredible speed.

"Flash, we need a maelstrom," Etrigan shouted after knocking aside another ogre.

"How big of one," Flash questioned after nimbly dodging and knocking out another two monsters.

"As big as you can manage without endangering us," Etrigan explained after lifting an ogre over his head and tossing it aside like it were a simple pillow.

"No problem," Flash confidently smirked. A minute later, Flash was racing around everyone as fast as he could, while Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America continued struggling to break free of their captors, not quite willing to just wait until Etrigan enacted whatever plan he had. They were not going to say no to whatever assistance it could give though.

"By the cold heart of Hela, I command you: FREEZE," Etrigan chanted, and when he thrust his hands out again, he ended up releasing not fire, but a very icy blast of magic that soon encased all of the ogres in ice. Since their captors were now barely able to hold them, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America had no trouble breaking free, but afterwards, they could only watch as the various ice statues wobbled a little in the wind of Flash's mini-tornado. Clearly that was not quite what Etrigan was hoping for, because he immediately shouted, "Faster! FASTER!"

"You got it," Flash replied, immediately pouring it on even more than he already was, but still being careful to not run so fast that he would accidentally cause something in the Watchtower to break apart. A few seconds later, the statues could no longer take the intense pressure from the whirlwind, and immediately broke apart. Batman was quick to try and shield himself from the ice shards that went flying as a result with his cape, while Cap did the same with his shield, and Diana her arms, until finally, all that remained of their intruders was small piles of ice and ashes. When Flash came to a screeching stop, he was only panting a little for a few seconds before plucking an ice shard out of the butt of his suit and saying, "Well that was a real pain in the ass."

The only reaction to Flash's quip was Cap smirking a little in good humor, because the others were all intending to stay on the more important matters of business. "Is everyone okay," Batman asked.

"We're fine, but has anyone seen J'onn," Diana questioned. It was at that point that everyone finally noticed that Martian Manhunter had never joined the battle, and given what Batman had said earlier, along with J'onn's change in behavior, Steve quickly gained a bad feeling in his gut.

"Spread out and start searching for him. Check every deck if you have to," Captain America immediately ordered, not knowing that he had inadvertently beaten Batman to the punch. Not that the Dark Knight was complaining.

"Don't bother," Etrigan immediately huffed, and they could all see that his face carried a hint of sorrow beneath his otherwise angry expression. "The Martian's gone, and so is the stone."

No one was willing to believe that, but all the same, most of them immediately rushed down to the vault they had sealed the stone into while Flash headed for the hangar in the hopes of securing the Javelin before J'onn could take off in it. When they arrived, they were all sad to see that it was wide open, the stone was gone, and according to the computer, it had been opened using J'onn's access codes. Seeing the stone was no longer where they had left it just like he said, Etrigan finally lost what little control he had on his temper. "You stupid, ignorant, pathetic excuses for heroes!"

"It can't be," Diana whispered, still not quite willing to believe her eyes.

"Oh really, Your Highness? Take another look. I've pursued that witch for centuries, yet you blindly ignored my warnings and doomed the world," Etrigan immediately accused, not caring at all if he pissed anyone off.

"Enough," Diana shouted, slapping the demon in his face out of anger.

Unsurprisingly, this only spurned Etrigan on. "The truth hurts, doesn't it princess?"

"Why don't you go straight to…"

"Now that's enough," Captain America interrupted. "Fighting each other is not going to help anyone."

"And neither is more bad news, but I'm afraid I still have to give it to you guys," Flash revealed when he appeared next to Batman. "The Javelin's gone, and J'onn's access code is still punched into the hangar control."

"Any more questions," Etrigan rhetorically asked, thinking that he had further proved his point.

"Yes. Can you please shut the hell up for a couple of minutes," Captain America snapped, surprising everyone a little as he approached a nearby communications console, hoping he could reach his friend. "Watchtower to Javelin 7. Come in Javelin 7…J'onn, if you're there, please respond. J'onn, do you copy?"

A small buzz from the console was the only reply that Cap got, but before he could make another attempt, Diana placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't bother. He's turned off the comm. link."

"He belongs to Le Fay now," Etrigan muttered, earning a glare from nearly every Leaguer in the room.

"We'll stop him. I promise," Flash guaranteed.

"Like you promised to protect the stone?"

"We'll do whatever it takes, Etrigan," Batman assured his friend.

"Are you saying you're prepared to take out one of your own," the demon questioned. He knew that Batman was willing to go further than most other mortals would in the fight against evil, but he also doubted that the Dark Knight would actually go that far. It was no secret to anyone that the one thing Batman did not do was kill after all.

"I repeat: whatever it takes," Batman promised.

"While I do admire the confidence, I don't think that's really not going to help too much, because last I checked, without the Javelin or even any of the shuttles, we're all still stuck up here on the Watchtower," Captain America pointed out. He knew that a lot of things had changed in the last seventy years, but he also knew that even with all the advancements in technology and changes in people, there was still no way to fly through space and get down to Earth without a ship or having powers similar to those of Green Lantern or Superman, neither of which were here or even available right now.

"Maybe not. Get a lock on the Javelin," Batman ordered before he fixed his gaze on Etrigan. Just by that one look, the demon was quickly able to piece together what the Dark Knight had in mind, and he had to grin a little in response.

* * *

They were so close now. The return of Camelot was so close at hand, and with its return would come Mordred's rightful rule. It may have taken a few centuries, thanks in no small part to the interference of that irritably, damnable Jason Blood and his demonic alter ego, but now, Morgaine would finally have what she had longed for, and to help celebrate, she had transformed most of London into a massive castle, from which her son would rule. All that remained now was for that foolish Martian to arrive and give her the stone. With its power, not only would this castle become a permanent change to the world, but no one would ever oppose her again. Not without meeting a terrible fate that is. It was only a matter of time now, and when the clock struck twelve at this Halloween night's end, the world would belong to Mordred, just as she had promised him it would be all those centuries ago.

The sound of engines coming closer and shutting down immediately drew her attention away from Mordred's childish excitement over his new castle and throne, and Morgaine could only smirk when she saw the Javelin touch down right outside the entrance to the newly constructed throne room, with Martian Manhunter flying over to them moments later. "And now the final piece arrives," Morgaine informed her boy just as J'onn had reached them, with the philosopher's stone in plain view for all to see. "Come forth, my noble knight."

J'onn merely stared at Le Fay for a few minutes, glancing between the witch and the stone, before he finally asked, "Do you intend to keep your word when I give you the stone?"

"Of course. With its power, I can grant you what you wish: to reunite your lost loved ones again," Le Fay promised, still making sure to keep her true intents for what she would do to the Martian when she had the stone as well hidden as her face was.

That was all that J'onn needed to hear before stepping forward to deliver the philosopher's stone into Le Fay's hands. Just as he was about to reach her though, a massive barrier suddenly sprung up between them, knocking J'onn away, while his friends and Etrigan all sprung forth, revealing it to be both a barrier and a portal. "Ding! Fifth floor. Sporting goods, hardware, evil sorceresses," Flash quipped the minute his feet had touched the ground.

Batman wasted as little time in throwing a batarang at Le Fay as Captain America had in throwing his shield at said sorceress, but Morgaine merely conjured a barrier before her that both projectiles immediately ricocheted off of. She then fired a powerful blast of magic at the Leaguers that Batman, Etrigan, and Cap all managed to dodge, while Flash and Wonder Woman ended up not being so lucky. With all distractions now apparently out of the way, J'onn started to approach Morgaine once again, but he was quickly pushed away by Etrigan, who then cast a spell that would make sure the witch would not be reaching the Martian any time soon. Morgaine managed to cast this aside as well, but she soon ended up having to deal with both Flash and Wonder Woman as a result. Not that she had to do so alone, because Mordred had decided to join the battle, firing magic bolts at the two heroes when he did.

"Get out of my castle," Mordred shouted as he attempted to hit both Amazon and speedster, only for both to easily evade or deflect the blasts as best as they could.

"Whoa! The kid's got magic too," Flash gasped after taking cover behind a pillar.

"The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Diana noted as she ducked behind the same pillar.

J'onn likely would have joined the fight against his teammates, but he was kept occupied by battling against Etrigan, and the demon was not making it easy for him. "Imbecile," Etrigan roared as he pounced on the Martian to try and pin him down. "That harpy has you charmed! She'll never give you what you want."

"Stand aside, demon," J'onn snarled in retort, clearly not willing to listen, and he immediately slammed his fist into Etrigan, knocking him away. Etrigan did not let that affront go unpunished, because he quickly recovered and slammed J'onn into a nearby wall, before hammering his fists into the Martian as hard as he could. Under this brutal assault, J'onn was unable to remain standing for long, and dropped the philosopher's stone from his grasp when he fell. Etrigan immediately scooped it up afterwards, but J'onn was not done yet. "She has promised to use the stone's power to restore Mars."

"All honey and lies," Etrigan scoffed. "Your reward will be an eternal purgatory for you and this world."

"I don't care! This is my last chance for happiness. My last chance to embrace my family," J'onn pleaded, hoping that there was some part of Etrigan that would understand and take pity on him.

"J'onn, you can't believe her," Captain America shouted, stepping over to where the two had been battling so that he could attempt to appeal to his friend's better nature. "I know it hurts knowing that your loved ones are gone, and I can understand wanting to do anything to get them back, but not if the price is as steep as this. Do you really think your people, let alone your wife and kids would want you to damn an entire world for their sakes?"

"Perhaps, but this is the only chance I have, Captain. The invaders took everything from me, and I am now the last of my kind, a lone soldier who lost his war despite achieving victory. Please, you must let me do this," J'onn pleaded.

Steve was not sure how to reply to that, but Etrigan did have one idea. "You'll embrace your loved ones again, after the worms devour your bones!"

Clearly, that had been the wrong thing to say, because the minute Etrigan had said it, J'onn finally snapped, and suddenly began to take this fight much more seriously. He proved this when he used his density shifting to become as hard as the strongest steel, keeping him protected from Etrigan's next punch while the demon recoiled in pain. Even after changing back to his normal density, J'onn was far from done with him, because he immediately rushed in to beat down on Etrigan as hard as he could. One last blow was all it took to cause Etrigan to drop the stone, and J'onn made sure that he would be the one to retrieve by slamming his foot down on Etrigan's head. "I'll not be denied," J'onn growled as he pocketed the mystical relic.

Before he could depart though, he was soon struck by Cap's shield, and was sent into the wall again. After using his suit's electro magnets to retrieve his shield, Captain America immediately moved in to strike J'onn with a hard bash using the shield, followed by a hard punch across J'onn's front. The next blow that Steve threw out ended up going through J'onn though, throwing Steve off balance long enough for Martian Manhunter to kick him in the back, sending the super soldier on a collision course with Etrigan just as said demon was starting to stand up again. One look at the glare that both soldier and demon gave J'onn afterwards though would allow anyone to see that they were still determined to not going to let J'onn go through with this no matter what.

Meanwhile, Batman was having just as much luck in his fight as his teammates currently were, as he was constantly running and ducking in an attempt to stay ahead of Le Fay's magic blasts. Every time it seemed like he had an opening, the sorceress would throw out another blast that made him duck into cover once again. What he needed right now was a distraction, and thankfully, he soon got one thanks to Flash. Not that it lasted long, as Morgaine was able to direct a blast that managed to trip up the speedster, and likely would have finished him off had Wonder Woman not intervened in time to save him. Batman would have taken this opportunity to charge in, but Mordred quickly discouraged him from doing so by picking up where his mother had left off.

Another quick spell allowed Mordred to bring his throne to life, which he then set loose on the Dark Knight. Now Batman had fought many things in his life, but a piece of furniture? That was…somewhat of a new one. All the same, it still fought like a savage animal, and Batman was able to use that to his advantage by knocking it aside with his fist, long enough to arm an electro batarang. Upon throwing the bat-shaped projectile, Batman quickly turned to retrieve a nearby axe, even as the throne howled in pain like the animal it had become after getting hit by the electrified batarang, and with the axe in hand, Batman immediately began hacking away before he finally just kicked the chair over the ledge. He did not have much time to rest though, as a stray bolt of magic that nearly hit him in the arm clearly proved.

Mordred was getting more and more frustrated with the League's intrusion into his castle, and was now just throwing magic bolts everywhere that he could in a fit until he was suddenly grabbed from behind. "Playtime's over, kid," Flash quipped as he struggled to hold onto the brat.

"Mother," Mordred cried out, instantly making Flash a little worried.

Seeing her son in peril instantly made Le Fay's anger grow, and she immediately cast a powerful bolt at the floor, which immediately rebounded up into Flash. This not only freed Mordred from the scarlet speedster's grasp, but also served to knock him out of the fight as well, much to both mother and son's relief. They were beginning to grow tired of Flash's constant annoyance, but then again, that could easily be said for the interference that all the members of the Justice League were putting up. That was only further enforced when Diana's lasso wrapped around Morgaine, pinning her arms to her sides for only a moment, until she released a powerful shockwave that caused Diana to release her hold and become knocked out as well. When Batman approached in an attempt to arouse the princess, he was unprepared for the shock that the residual magic around Diana would send into him, and was taken out of the fight as well.

If they had noticed the rest of their teammates falling, Etrigan and Captain America had not paid it too much mind, because they were more focused on fighting Martian Manhunter. J'onn was certainly living to the name at the moment, because not only was he proving very difficult to hit, but he also struck back with a very devastating amount of strength. "Stand and fight, damn you," Etrigan roared, easily becoming annoyed by these hit and run tactics that the Martian was employing.

"Not exactly smart call at the moment, soldier," Captain America cautioned, but it was too little too late, as he was suddenly grabbed from behind by J'onn, after said Martian had rose up from the floor behind him. After getting thrown across the room, Cap had barely managed to stand before J'onn had grabbed him by the head in one hand, and the super soldier could only scream as he fell victim to a Martian telepathic attack. As result of said attack, Steve was instantly viewing every loss and hardship he had endured from his time in the war, and immediately fell unconscious when it proved too much for him to take.

"My apologies, Captain, but I can't allow anyone to get in my way. Not even you," J'onn said after releasing Steve from his grasp, his voice showing how truly regretful he felt for doing that. He then used his shapeshifting to slither his way around another blast of magic from Etrigan, and then behind the demon before securing both heads on Etrigan's head, fully intending to show much less mercy than he had his friend after what the demon had said earlier. "Nothing will keep me from my loved ones! Especially not you!"

Once more, J'onn unleashed a telepathic attack, this time on Etrigan's psyche, but unlike before, when he merely saw the losses and hardships that Captain America had suffered, he saw something much different. He saw Le Fay and her forces charging on Camelot, Jason Blood betraying his comrades for her, said knight's poisonous reward for aiding the sorceress, and finally the moment when Merlin had cursed him with both immortality and the power of Etrigan for his crime of allying with Le Fay. Seeing all of this, J'onn finally understood why Etrigan was so sure when he spoke of what would happen if he had trusted Le Fay, and as he relinquished his hold on Etrigan, allowing him to drop to the floor and change back into Jason Blood, J'onn found that he now knew what he must truly do.

"The stone," Le Fay suddenly demanded, revealing that she had moved to stand behind J'onn, as he quickly learned when he turned around. "Give it to me."

J'onn slowly turned and pulled the stone out of his belt, casting a small glance to Jason Blood as he thought about what he had just seen, before fixing another glance on Captain America and feeling all the more remorseful over what he had done to one of his newest friends out of his desperate desire for Le Fay's lie to be truth. Even when Le Fay cast one more illusion of his wife calling out to him, J'onn's feelings did not change, because his resolve was now firmly set. When he finally approached Le Fay and held the stone out to her, he did not give it to her. Instead, he simply crushed it in his hand and said, "No."

Le Fay and Mordred could only look on in horror and sorrow as the remains of the philosopher's stone fell to the floor, before the former asked, "What have you done? You could have had anything you dreamed of. Your family, your whole world could have been yours again."

"The price was too high, and Captain America was right. My family would not have wanted this. I see that now. You can no longer tempt me," J'onn countered, showing how sure he was of that.

Hearing that, Mordred could only look to the older sorceress and ask, "Have we lost, mother?"

"Only this battle, my son, but not the war," Le Fay promised, and with that, the two vanished in a flash of light, while the castle began to change back into the city of London once again, just as the other heroes were beginning to regain consciousness.

When the all saw that the city was returning to normal, they all rushed outside just to make sure that it was all changing back, and they all breathed a sigh of relief when they saw everything from the store fronts to Big Ben reverting to its true state in a small shimmer of energy. "It's over," Batman declared, greatly relieved of that fact.

"Thank god for that," Captain America sighed in relief.

"No kidding, but all the same, I don't think I'm going to be watching any movies with magic or knights of any kind for a long time after this," Flash commented, half-jokingly, half-seriously. All the same, everyone actually had to agree with the scarlet speedster on that.

J'onn on the other hand was feeling much different from his teammates, and he did not waste any time in making that known to them. "My friends, I have failed you," J'onn stated in deepest sorrow, drawing everyone's gaze to him. "In my yearning for my old family, I almost lost my new one. Please accept my humble apology…and my resignation from the Justice League."

"Wait, what," Flash exclaimed while the others all silently gasped in shock. Even Batman was showing visual surprise upon hearing that last part, despite the fact that it was still much more subdued than the others, but all the same, they were all shocked enough to be unable to do anything to keep J'onn from turning and start walking away.

"J'onn, you don't have to do that. None of this was your fault. Le Fay knew just what buttons to push to get you to do what she wanted, and you were hoping that there was some truth in her promise to reunite you with your family again. Anyone would have done the same in your place," Steve tried to argue.

"Would they, Captain? And would they have attacked you all in the way that I did," J'onn asked, pausing only for a moment in his departure.

"That's the thing about family. They forgive each other, no matter what, and they don't let each other deal with their problems alone," Cap pointed out.

J'onn still did not seem willing to hear them, until Jason finally stepped forward to add his own two cents of protest against J'onn's resignation. "Wait. The demon was wrong about you, Martian Manhunter," Jason admitted, surprising J'onn a little. "You redeemed yourself here today."

"Did I," J'onn questioned.

"Of course," Flash insisted. "You showed that even if you are from another planet, underneath that goofy green skin, you're human after all."

J'onn appreciated that little sentiment, and his appreciation for the others only grew more when Jason added something else to that. Though his sorrow for the former knight of Camelot grew along with it. "I only wish I had had your strength centuries ago, but I'm still cursed," Jason revealed. "I must walk alone throughout eternity."

With his piece now said, Jason took his leave with the League all watching him go with sympathy in their hearts for him. "Poor man. May he someday find the peace he seeks," J'onn prayed for his newest friend.

"One can only hope for that day, J'onn, and I doubt he will ever stop looking until he has found it," Diana agreed, saying a few silent prayers for Jason Blood as well.

Everyone shared that sentiment as well, and for the next few weeks after that, they were all saying a prayer or two on Jason Blood's behalf, in the hopes that he would indeed find that peace someday soon. After all, if helping other heroes in saving the world was not enough to earn him his redemption, it was hard to really see just what it would truly take for the immortal man to claim it.

* * *

 ** _AN: Well, I'd say that this adventure ended up being a bit shorter than I had originally expected, and while not much had changed here, I must confess that there was not all that much that I could do. Sure, I could have added in Ghost Rider, but (and this is getting back to what I said earlier in the opening note) there just wasn't ever a point where I could easily add him in. Not without him seeming like he's basically just bashing the door down and forcing himself into the middle of everything. Maybe in a future chapter that involves magic-users and such, but this time, it just wasn't in the cards._**

 ** _Batman: It still seems like a few things did change in comparison to the original version of this episode. Like with some of Flash's dialogue._**

 ** _AN: Well, given that this is a different version of the Flash in comparison to the one from the show, it was only natural that he would say things that were quite different in comparison._**

 ** _Flash: Plus, let's not forget the fact that we got to see a jealous Captain America, even if it was a case of unfounded jealousy._**

 ** _AN: Hey, I figured that it would be a good place to throw that in, and it's not like we see that side of Captain America all that often. Really, I think that the only big thing to happen here is that Captain America got to know J'onn a little better, which is actually a pretty good thing. So far, he's only really bonded with Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman. Sure, he's worked in Gotham and teamed-up with Batman's partners, while also working alongside the Dark Knight, but even that is still not to the same point as those other four. Meanwhile, there has yet to be a chapter where Steve has had much chance to really connect with either Martian Manhunter or Hawkgirl, and I guess this ended up being the chapter where he did just that for the former. Maybe in a later chapter he'll get a chance to do the same with Shayera, but we'll just have to wait and see on that for now._**

 ** _Green Lantern: Well, I guess the next chapter is the episode where we deal with the origin story of Metamorpho, right?_**

 ** _AN: Sorry, but no. Yes, that adventure will happen, but it's really going to be more akin to a background thing in relation to the events of next chapter. Simply put, it's time for another step outside the main story like we had earlier on in the chapter where Spidey met Batgirl. If you think this means we're going to see more of the relationship between Peter and Barbara, as well as the one between their alter-egos, then you would be wrong. Someone else is taking a turn to showcase their stories in this continuity. Onto the Preview!..._**

 ** _It's time for another shift in focus from the League to this larger Marvel/DC universe, and this time, we're heading to Star City and her team of defenders. Team Arrow finds themselves caught up in a nasty plot when Brother Blood and his Church of Blood return to the city with some new, augmented soldiers that are faster and stronger than anything they had seen, all of which are lead by the only one of these augmented warriors who seems somewhat sane: a man by the name of Mallen. When Team Iron Man joins the fight, things start to get a little more heated up, and one has to wonder just how far the members of both teams will go in order to stop this new threat to Star City. See who will have failed this city next time in…_** **Interlude 2: Armor and Arrows** ** _._**

 ** _Yep, you heard it here. Next time, we're checking out more the story behind this continuity's version of Green Arrow and his team, and Iron Man and his own crew, and not only that, but its going to be in a team-up of the two. Seems like I'm doing that a lot when it comes to these interludes, huh? Well, what better way to showcase this combined Marvel/DC-verse that that, right? And if you guys know your Iron Man history, I think you might have an idea on what story will have the most influence on the next chapter's adventure. I'll try to get this next update out as soon as I can, but until then..._**

 ** _Please read and review, and I'll_** ** _see you all next time, hero believers!_**


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